


Mad King Ryan

by hopelessbookgeek



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Gen, Mad King Ryan, king AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-01-12 21:13:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1200884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopelessbookgeek/pseuds/hopelessbookgeek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One was fighting for family, one for the good of the realm, one for glory, and one for a place in the world. Only one was fighting for the love of the game. "Why," the last said, "I am going to kill the king." A Game of Thrones AU based on the Mad King Ryan let's plays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: "I am going to kill the king."

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so as someone who's recently become obsessed with "A Song of Ice and Fire" and Achievement Hunter's "Minecraft" Let's Plays, I was absolutely delighted by the newest "Mad King Ryan". I've seen plenty of king AUs but no Game of Thrones ones yet, which is weird since, you know, "Mad King". Anyway, I'm here to close that gap in the fandom. Wish me luck, and enjoy!

The four men clustered around a table piled high with books and scrolls and loose papers. It was the middle of the night, the only time they could be sure to meet without attracting suspicion. In King’s Landing, where they’d been forced to gather by the pleasure of the king, spies were everywhere, and there was no telling what would happen to them if they were caught. It was treason to plot against the king, and treason was not lightly punished.

“King Geoff the Conqueror, first of his name, took back Westeros from the Targaryen tyrants and liberated her people,” the eldest of the group read aloud from an old, thick tome. He was a knight but was nearing forty and had certainly seen better days. In his youth, he was renowned for his quick-wittedness and agility, but now he was unshaven and usually drunk. “He reigned long and true, but was slain in his own bed at the hand of a Targaryen relative, avenging the death of his cousins. King Ryan the Usurper, first of his name, was mad, as Targaryens are said to be.”

“Well, people wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true,” said a young lordling from the Fingers with a shrug. He was the most impatient of the group, rash and quick to anger, and despised these late night rendezvous because he wanted more than anything to do something. He typically wore boiled leather and mail to these meetings, despite no intention of action, just in case. The low candlelight made his red-brown curls brighter and the flames flickered in his eyes. “Everyone knows the saying, that when a Targaryen is born the gods flip a coin to decide if he’ll be mad or great. Evidently that’s true of the Haywoods as well, and it’s been against our favor every time.”

“D’you think the more times you remind us that the king is mad, the more likely we are to be able to do a thing about it?” the heavy, bearded northman said. He rarely spoke, but when he did, the others listened; his deep voice was commanding, and the others secretly suspected that if they pushed him too far, he would snap. As the only one among them who kept the old gods, he cared not for this talk of coin flipping.

“King Ryan was deposed by a lord of the Reach. He fled Westeros with his wife and child for fear of death. King Ray the Kind, first of his name, reigned during the Long Summer. His wife gave him many strong sons, and the Kingdoms prospered under his guidance and wisdom.”

“In other words, boring,” the youngest of the five said with a flash of a smile. He was in name a Tyrell cousin, but it was common knowledge that his mother had become pregnant by an affair with a Dornishman. He had the look of a stony Dornishman, undeniably, with his brown skin, thick dark hair, and darting black eyes. He was the most relaxed of the group, found humor where others found none, and flaunted the typical rules of bastardry by using his father’s surname and taking the Tyrell rose as his sigil, although it was red and not gold.

“I’d rather be bored than terrified,” the eldest said, looking up from his book. “I won’t have my daughter grow up in a world like this, not when there’s something I can do about it.”

“Nor any children I might have with my wife,” the lordling agreed.

“After King Ray’s natural death, he was succeeded by his son, King Michael the Cruel, first of his name. Michael nears the tenth year of his reign and the whole of the Realm suffers for it.” The knight looked up again. “That’s where it ends, before the newest Mad King took over. Shame. The book has a lot of good information on the strengths and weaknesses of the kings. If we knew the Mad King’s greatest weakness, we might be able to do something about it.”

“Sometimes I wonder if there’s anything we can do about any of this,” the northman said.

“Yes, there is!” said the lordling, hands clenched into fists, ruby ring shining like a burst of flame. “There must be! We’re not giving up, are we? Remember what we’re fighting for!”

They made sounds of assent. The knight was fighting for his young daughter, the northman for the good of the realm, the lordling for glory, and the bastard for the hope of finding a place in this world. Only one of them was fighting for love of the game, and he had not spoken all night.

“We will keep trying, won’t we? Read the books we can, speak to servants and informers, gather as much information as we can. The Mad King has two children, if anything should happen to them, or if they should be removed from the line of succession, we can perhaps find a way for one of us to be installed in place of an heir. It won’t be easy, it might be bloody, but we need to secure our futures. One of us must be the next king.”

“If we can do this without harming the children, we should,” the knight said. “Perhaps if we can prove their illegitimacy… If they weren’t the king’s trueborn sons, if their mother sired bastards…”

A low laugh echoed from the corner of the room. The fifth member of the group, who hadn’t said a word all night, was leaning back in a wooden chair in a shadow-drenched corner of the room. The other four were surprised to hear him make a noise; he came along to every meeting because they couldn’t stop him, but he rarely had anything of value to say. They had almost forgotten he was there.

He was neither the eldest nor youngest of the group, neither the highest born nor the lowest, neither particularly handsome nor quick-witted nor skilled in battle. He was unfathomable as an enemy because he seemed not noteworthy enough to garner any. “You can play about with lines of succession and bastards if you please, but I have a better idea.”

“And what would that be?”

He tipped the chair forward so that it landed heavily on its front legs. The bloom of moonlight coming in through the slit of a window lit up his face, which was twisted into a frightening smile. He didn’t look unextraordinary then.

“Why,” he said in a casual voice that clashed so thoroughly with his expression, “I am going to kill the king.”


	2. Hide and Seek

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So here's how this is gonna go: I'm going to update once every week or week and a half, depending on how busy I am. There was a prologue and they'll be a chapter for every task the Mad King set the other five. There were ten in all, so expect around eleven chapters. I hope you enjoy this!

It was a grand affair, the anniversary. One year to the day the Mad King placed a blood-soaked crown on his head and declared himself Ryan the first come again. In celebration of this momentous occasion, he personally arranged an enormous tourney, of sorts. Knights, lords, and glory-seekers alike were invited to try their hand at the jousts, and special events awaited the very best of the group. Of course, invited was only a word; its meaning was painfully clear when a young lordling from the Riverlands was executed for treason upon sending word he would not be participating in the games.

Through a combination of skill and bribery, the Five Kings, as they’d taken to calling themselves, became the champions of the day. Ray, the self-styled Rose Bastard, dominated the melees with spear and sword, untouchable. The heavy plate armor of the Westerosi gave them more protection but slowed them down; he wore only boiled leather and a beautifully wrought gorget, and was appropriately quick and agile. None of the others, a handful drunk, many not properly trained, many and more foolish, stood a chance against him.

Ser Geoff took the jousting. He’d made special, hidden adaptations to his saddle that gave him a far better chance of staying in the seat, even when struck. It was a slight trick but a useful one; he wasn’t unhorsed all day, and his lance struck true. He was allowed to crown the day’s queen of love and beauty and crowned his pretty lady wife.

Gavin of House Free easily took the prize for archery. No tricks, no games, just his skill with the bow. None of the other four Kings knew he was so skilled, so they didn’t have to feign surprise as they did when Ser Geoff won. He drew an arrow the same second he loosed the one before it, motions fluid and almost too quick to be seen. He was fast, he was accurate, and since he wasn’t drunk, he outshone all the others.

There was a good deal more planning that went into securing victories for Lord Michael and Jack. Jack was uninterested in sport, more so than anyone else Ser Geoff thought he’d ever met, and so it wasn’t easy to convince the crowd that he was a victor. Lord Michael at least was audacious and passionate. It was easy to see him in elegant, blue-grey armor, reddish hair glinting like polished copper in the sun, sword just as much a part of him as his true arm, and have him declared a winner.

In the end, all five men knelt before their king, bruised, vaguely bloody, but victorious. The Mad King smiled at them, sweetly enough, but privately Ser Geoff shivered; he’d seen enough false smiles to tell true from not, and King Ryan was smiling at him the way a viper might look at a mouse. It was made more unsettling by the sheer fact of King Ryan’s rather pleasing countenance, when he wasn’t burning with anger. His features were soft but strong, his skin smooth and light, his eyes shining like some rare gem from the East, and when the wind blew his hair over his forehead, he might have been ten years younger.

“Congratulations to our five victors!” the king shouted to the court, who cheered and shouted the names of their favorites. Most were for Geoff, who was a faithful and well-known knight, and Ray, who was well-loved despite his dubious parentage, but here and there were cries for Michael, who was brave and smiled easily. There seemed to one person vigorously cheering Gavin. “You have fought bravely and honorably, and we will feast in your names tonight. On the morrow you will be invited to partake in another challenge, mediated by myself and my Hand.”

There was that word again, invited. The lazy smile on his lips gave them a choice. The wildfire in his eyes did not. Or rather, it did: play or die. “Your Grace,” Ser Geoff said, as the oldest and the leader of the Kings, “I should not speak for my companions in this way, but I don’t think it too forward to say that we are honored to be graced in this way. We would like nothing better than to compete again, for the glory of the Seven and Your Grace.” His hand twitched automatically toward his sword hilt at the lie. He’d never been a good liar, and more than once his lies had caused him trouble, so when he was forced to lie, he tended to make sure he had a fighting weapon within reach.

If King Ryan noticed Geoff’s nonverbal response, he gave no notice of it. “There will be two trials tomorrow. Eat well tonight, drink good wine, and sleep, and on the morrow we shall see which of you is victorious.”

The feast was the biggest any of the Kings had ever attended. It was lavish and decadent, but they were all too consumed by anxiety to truly enjoy it. Gavin and Geoff drank as much sweet Arbor gold as they could, eager to relax. The wine made Gavin drowsy, and he sat at a place of honor on the dais half-asleep, but it made Geoff more rowdy. He traded bawdy jokes with Ray and spun his wife around the dance floor once, before the drink made it hard to stand up straight.

Michael thought of his wife as well, safe at home on the Fingers. He had only just taken over the castle of Strongsong, and the people there hadn’t quite come to trust him yet. To leave it unattended by both its lord and lady would be folly, so his fiery, red-haired Lindsay stayed at home to take care of matters. He missed her dearly, but did his best not to show it. It would be a weakness he did not want to expose here, in the heart of the Mad King’s court.

Jack struck up a deep and long conversation with the captain of the gold cloaks, Caleb. He was seated beside Ray, who laughed and flirted with the prettiest serving girl– Alaya, he got her to tell him, from Myr– and generally made merry. He alone of the five had nothing strong to drink, preferring to keep his mind clear. He had no enemies at court that he knew of but no friends, either, and he would rather keep it that way.

After the feast, the five were given adjoining suites of chambers, warm and comfortable. Most of them fell asleep easily, due to exhaustion or the drink, but Gavin, who had been so tired at the feast, was painfully awake. Instead of sleeping, he sat out on a stone balcony, watched as the lights of King’s Landing steadily went out, sharpened his sword… and waited.

The next morning the five, in various shades of wakefulness, knelt again before the king. They wore no armor and carried no weapons but their swords. Geoff wore deep, forest green and dark grey, practical colors in practical light wool. Gavin was a patchwork all in green, which would camouflage well in a forest but look ridiculous elsewhere. Michael wore light, breathable sandsilk under boiled leather with twin turquoise brooches pinned to his jerkin. Jack was in red and green, and Ray wore all black over a white linen shirt with his characteristic rose pinned to it. Their boots were in various stages of disrepair; Ray’s black ones were obviously brand-new, while Geoff’s may have been black once but had become a sort of dull grey, putted from salt and sand.

“Good morn to you all,” the king said. “If you will follow me…” He swept from the room in a swirl of silk and rubies glinting like drops of blood, and the five hurried to keep up with his long strides. They left the Red Keep and entered a wide courtyard, thick and wooded. Gavin grinned to know his choice of coloring was appropriate. The king’s Hand, Kerry, was already waiting all in deep blue. “If you will hand your weapons to my Hand, we may begin.”

That was puzzling. Jack was the first to hand his sword over, having never really been comfortable with it hanging on his belt, but Geoff struggled. He had learned it was death for a knight to relinquish his sword, and what the hell kind of tourney would be won with no weapons? Though there weren’t any spectators, that was odd… the wind whistled through the branches eerily. Something was very wrong here…

“You all seem rather low energy, so we will start off with a little… warm up. You have thirty seconds to run. You may not leave these woods, nor may you use any weapons that may have been… left here.” His smile was unnerving. Under what circumstances were those weapons left, they were forced to wonder. “My Hand and I will find you. The last to be found is the winner.”

Did he mean to prove them craven, to run from a fight rather than face it head on? Were the losers to be slaughtered? Was the winner? What was going on here? Michael, uneasy and least willing to be thought craven, opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, the king shouted “GO”, and so they ran for their lives. And who knows… they might have been. The sound of Kerry counting down followed them through the trees.

As he ran, Ray passed by a small, decrepit hut. It seemed to be abandoned, so he doubled back and slipped inside, throwing himself to the ground. Something glinted gold– a gold dragon. He didn’t like the idea of how it was left here, as if someone’s purse had been torn open… What had happened to the person who’d carried it?

Gavin, who hated running, shimmied up a thick tree as soon as he could and trusted his clothing to hide him within the foliage. He was in a poor position should a situation arise that required a quick escape, but for simply hiding… it might work.

Michael simply ran. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath but froze in fear when he saw a glint of bright turquoise armor that shone like diamonds. It could have only been the king’s, really; none of his companions had armor, and it looked expensive, too expensive for a king’s Hand. His hand went to his empty belt out of habit. Hoping he hadn’t been seen, he dashed off further into the trees.

Jack, much like Gavin, was no great fan of running, and tore into what looked like an abandoned mine. It had caved in towards the back and could have easily been a trap, but still he eased backwards away from the entrance and cursed his brightly-colored clothing. He fumed that his friends– were they truly even friends?– had dragged him into this.

Michael was the first to be captured. It turned out that King Ryan had seen him and gave chase. He found a sizeable hole under a boulder and dove under it, but after that it was a dead end, and Ryan had him cornered. He was clad all in beautifully wrought blue armor and carried a sword, but it was oddly made, deep grey and with wavy lines that seemed to suggest it had been folded dozens of times… Valyrian steel, Michael realized in horror. Valyrian steel was almost impossible to find, and it was absolute top quality in sword-making. That blade could near slice him in half.  
Ryan tore him out of the hole and held him by the collar, grinning manically. In the midmorning light, his eyes shone, but the blade didn’t, instead seeming to drink up all light. I won’t die like this, Michael swore to himself, already scheming to get the king’s sword away from him if he could. Not all alone out in some woods without a weapon in my hand. “You can go,” the king said, too calmly, and it took Michael a few moments to fully realize what he’d said.

“I can… what?”

“Leave the woods. Go that way–” the king pointed somewhere to Michael’s left “–and you’ll come out where you entered. Stay there.” Michael didn’t argue and considered asking if he was the first to lose, but chose to bite his tongue instead and keep walking.

Geoff had found an old broken shovel and was digging himself a hole. Somewhere in the back of his mind he recognized the absolute idiocy of this plan– namely, he couldn’t leave if he were discovered, and a huge hole in the ground was rather conspicuous– but his heart was pounding and an instinctual need to avoid death had taken over.  
The ground, just a few feet under the grass, became too hard to shovel, thick and rocky and hard, so Geoff climbed out of his hole, dropped the shovel, and started walking cautiously through the woods, not noticing the shimmering blue figure not far behind him.

Ray tried to keep his breathing level and avoided moving as much as he could. He could see Kerry’s dark blue form outside wandering around, although he didn’t check inside the hut, at least for now. Kerry said a few words in passing to Michael (has he won? Has he lost? Is he leaving?) who seemed to just be casually walking by, and Ray wished he’d never gotten into this.

Geoff jumped a solid foot in the air and swore wildly at the sound of his king’s voice, wondering where he was going. By instinct he sent a punch flying, but thankfully it missed the king by a wide mile; if he’d connected fist to jaw, he’d probably have been executed. As it was, he was directed on how to leave the woods, and cursed himself for losing.

Jack, tentatively, emerged from his little mine. He’d been in there for ages, hadn’t he, he surely must have won by now… Or perhaps not, but it wouldn’t hurt to wander around a little, get a better feel for the woods… Right?

Ray was ashamed to admit that he shrieked in surprise when Kerry burst into the hut with a shining Valyrian steel dagger. He wanted a spear, a sword, something, anything, but all he had was old gold and a rose. He backed up against the wall of the hut, one hand behind him searching for a door he knew wasn’t there, but he needed an escape, needed to get out, had to run if he couldn’t fight. His heart was in his throat and this time, this time, he was sure he was going to die, but Kerry just lowered his dagger and told him how to leave the woods. Today was not the day to die.

Jack could see Ryan walking around in that ridiculous blue armor of his, and he dared not move. He froze behind a tree, terrified that Ryan would see him but not sure how he could make an escape. He was easy prey and he knew it. He couldn’t flee and he couldn’t fight, not without any weapons (not that he was much use with them anyway). In one seemingly ages long moment, their eyes met, and Jack bolted, but he was not in great shape and Ryan caught him easily. He flinched, sure that in a second Ryan would sever the head from his body, but instead he was told to go. It should have been a relief, so why couldn’t he relax?

Gavin, in his tree, was the victor, although he wasn’t aware of it. He hadn’t seen anyone in ages, but now the Hand was here, right underneath his tree, pacing as if he was searching. He dared not breath or move, sure that the slightest gasp or creaking branch would see him dead. He should have been afraid but wasn’t. He felt a strange sense of purpose, as if he was doing something that needed doing, and if he had to wait here all day for Kerry to leave, he would.

A horn sounded, and Kerry started laughing. “I know you’re around here somewhere, my lord Gavin,” he said, and Gavin nodded to himself. “Come down now. All the others have been found, you’re the last one. You’re the winner.”

It could have easily been a trap, but still Gavin leapt down from the tree, landing in a crouch. He reveled in Kerry’s shout of surprise, and holding his head high in victory, he followed the Hand out of the woods to where his friends were waiting. Geoff was muddy and looked tired, Ray had a smudge of grime on his chin, Michael’s cheek was slashed as if a tree branch had whipped him in the face, and Jack looked more proud than he had any right to, having lost. Kerry picked up a scroll and painted a gold line under Gavin’s name. “It means you won one round,” he explained. “It takes four successful rounds to win.”

“Congratulations to Gavin,” King Ryan said with a smirk. “After a light meal, we will reconvene, and you will be given another task, should you choose to accept it.”

Too many false choices, Geoff noted disgustedly. Still, he began to worry. Maybe he wouldn’t make it out of this alive after all.


	3. Uphill Climb

After a small lunch of brown bread, cold turkey, and hard cheese, the five once again followed King Ryan outside, this time to the back of the Red Keep, and down Aegon’s High Hill, where the cool stone walls rested on a soft sandy beach. Their boots sunk in, and Jack, at the back of the line, had the waters of Blackwater Rush lapping at his feet. There were rope and wood ladders hastily constructed that reached from the ground to the top of the hill, but broken up; the bottommost ladders didn’t connect to the middle ones, which didn’t connect to the ones at the top. They’d have to jump from ladder to ladder if they wanted to reach the top, which was about thirty or forty feet away from the ground, perhaps even fifty.

A stray cat slunk by, rubbing against Ray’s leg and begging for attention with wide green eyes. He smiled, bent down, and scratched the little tabby behind the ear. “Hi, Percival,” he named it.

“As a reward for winning the last round, Gavin,” the king said, “you have a slight advantage for this task.” He motioned for Kerry to hand over a square of gold silk, emblazoned with the dead brown tree of House Haywood. “If you start to fall, open it, and it will slow your fall. You won’t hit the ground so hard.

“The objective here is to get to the top of the ladders and ring the bell at the top.” He pointed upwards, and sure enough, Geoff could see a bronze bell, high above the ladders. “If you fall, you try again. If you so desire, there is a chest over there.” To the left of the ladders, there was indeed a heavy wooden chest. “There are bows and arrows enough for all. You may not shoot at each other, but a well-placed arrow may cause your opponent to lose their grip.” A sly, twisted smile came over his face, and it didn’t look as though he would mind terribly if anyone did get shot. “Now, go.”

Geoff and Michael immediately started climbing a ladder, though they didn’t get very high up before falling off. The sand broke their falls very well, although both knew that if they fell close to the top, they wouldn’t be nearly so lucky. Ray hung back, trying to decide if he would have better luck shooting or climbing. Jack looked afraid to begin. Gavin examined the pattern of the ladders carefully, working out the best path to begin on.

There were few enough bottom ladders and the men were constantly falling off, so the bottom was congested and enough sand was being kicked up that Michael’s eyes were watering. Gavin, whose lithe, limber body was perfect for climbing, hurried up the ladders faster and farther than any of the others. Still, when he was a little over halfway to the top, Kerry shot an arrow that stuck into the stone just to the right of his head, and it jolted him. There was one heart-stopping moment between when he realized he wasn’t going to be able to hold on any longer and when he remembered the square of silk the king had given him. He tugged it open, and let himself float down. Geoff, who saw him fall, shivered. If it had been him that high, he wouldn’t have been so lucky.

Ray got almost as high as Gavin when one of Kerry’s arrows just barely grazed his neck and stuck in the wall. He lost his grip in shock but managed to grab the next ladder down before he could fall. His heart was pounding and he could taste vomit in the back of his throat. He’d never done anything like this before; he could fight very well, he could take on any enemy with sword or spear or wit, but he had never been a long-range warrior and he had no weapons at all. He was defenseless, like a bird for the slaughter, and he didn’t want to die here, on the outer walls of King’s Landing, too far from his mother and his home. Not that he would let any of the others see him panic; he made a quip about how he’d have been dead long ago if his enemies knew he could be defeated by being put on a ladder and tried to hide the quaver in his voice.

Michael was having trouble getting more than five or ten feet off the ground, barely making it past any of the bottom ladders. He was a fast enough climber, but he had too much trouble moving from one ladder to another. He was in shape, but his shorter, stockier figure lent itself better to a strong defense than climbing ladders. Jack was having similar problems, although he wasn’t getting nearly as frustrated as Michael was. He wasn’t sure if that made things easier or more difficult.

Geoff had given up on climbing altogether. He got winded easily just trying to climb the ladders, let alone switch between them, so he stayed on the ground with a bow and arrows. He was careful never to fire too close to the other men for fear of hurting them, and he was a halfway decent shot, so it worked. He’d accepted that there was no way he could win this round, so he thought to at least stop the others from winning for a little while. He couldn’t help but notice how King Ryan was enjoying the spectacle, and knew that if it ended too quickly the king would not be pleased.

After many more failed attempts, Michael made it about two-thirds of the way up, and probably could have made it through a sheer refusal to fail… Except that Geoff was quite a good shot, and he tumbled down to land on his bottom in the sand. It hurt, and he was sure his tailbone would be bruised, but he knew that he was lucky to avoid more serious injury.

“I knew this would be difficult, but not quite this difficult,” the king mused.

“It would be difficult enough without the bows and arrows,” Michael responded, brushing sand from his breeches. His tone was polite enough, but Geoff had known the fiery young lord for a few years now, and he could feel the anger bubbling just under the surface. He had a feeling the king could feel it as well, but there was nothing he could do about it because Michael had, to the casual observer, done nothing wrong. Just because it made him uncomfortable to stand beside the king any longer, Geoff tried the ladders once more, and was promptly shoved out of the way by Michael. He didn’t try again.

After Michael fell from another, greater height, the king relented somewhat. “Once you’ve reached as high as Lord Michael did just then, where the ivy makes almost a line beside the ladders, no one may shoot in their direction any longer. The travails are perilous enough without adding arrows to the mix.”

The onlookers– the king, Geoff, Kerry, and a few gold cloaks from atop the city walls– were so focused on the likely winners, Gavin with his silken parachute, Michael with his strength and determined glare, Ray, slim and sinewy, that they didn’t notice Jack on a different section of the wall, pulling himself up slowly. He may not have wanted to do this, but since he was already here, there was no point in failing to try to win. Some part of him was awakened in these tasks, the primal, instinctual part of him that craved glory and victory.

“Does that parachute help at all when you fall off, Gavin?” Ray asked, partly in genuine curiosity but mostly to break the stone-cold silence.

“Ah, a bit. Doesn’t hurt my ankles as much.” Gavin’s light tone disguised how irritated he was in his own failure here. He was living up to his reputation as mediocre in every way, and he didn’t want that at all. He wanted to win, wanted to surprise everyone who thought he was going to fail. He watched impassively as Michael, who’d narrowly avoided being shot through the leg by an arrow, punch Geoff in the face and take his bow.

“Jack has reached the safe zone,” the king’s booming voice called out, sounding surprised. “Just a bit farther, then, you’ll make it.” And he did. Since no one could shoot at him anymore, he traversed the last ten feet of ladders fairly easily and rang the bell at the top. No sound had ever been so sweet. “And Jack has won! Rang the bell on his first try!”

Jack crawled carefully back down the ladders, and when he finally felt ground beneath his feet again, his legs nearly gave out under him. He hadn’t realized he’d been so scared or that he’d been holding his breath, so he relaxed, taking a shaking gasp of air that he tried to mask by stroking his beard. Kerry pulled out his scroll and carefully drew a gold line under Jack’s name to signify a victory. “Back to the castle, now,” the king said, and got going. The others followed him, Gavin and Jack in front.

As Gavin turned a corner, laughing, he ran directly into someone’s still-burning campfire. The laughs turned to shrieks as he tried desperately to pat the fire out with his hands. Jack and Michael, who’d gotten good looks as he made that mistake, doubled over laughing. “You absolute fool,” Michael gasped between chuckles as Gavin dove into Blackwater Bay to put the fire out. Gavin’s clothes were surprisingly unharmed; although he knew the cloth was woven in with fire-repelling herbs, he wasn’t sure that would work, and no one else knew that. He had heard the first King Ryan had a penchant for burning people he didn’t agree with, and while he’d never heard stories about the second King Ryan, he wasn’t taking any chances.

By the time the men made it back to the Red Keep, they were tired and bruised all over and asked leave to take their suppers in their own chambers. They stood in the corridor that linked their rooms. “This isn’t at all what I signed up for,” Jack said angrily.

“Oh, as if any of us knew what we were getting into,” Michael said in a scathing voice. “And you won the second round.”

“And Gavin won the first. Are you going to tell him to grow up as well?”

“He isn’t complaining. He wanted this more than any of us did. Hell of a lot more than you did.”

“Shut up,” Geoff said, stepping between Michael and Jack. “The last thing we need is to argue between ourselves. You.” He turned to Michael. “He has a right to be angry. We didn’t anticipate this, and it’s not anything we could have expected, and he has a right to be angry because he signed on for a revolution and he’s been climbing ladders.” Jack smirked, but Geoff rounded on him as well. “And you. He’s right too. You signed on to kill a king and that’s what we’re gonna do, but you knew it wouldn’t be easy. Get over it.” He rubbed his forehead. “This isn’t easy for me either.”

Jack nodded, eyes downcast, and Michael knew that Geoff was just thinking about his family. He thought of his own wonderful Lindsay, alone at Stormsong. “Gavin and Jack, congratulations on your victories. Michael and Ray, we can do this. Good night, folks. I need to go to bed.” Jack and Michael made their peace and one of King Ryan’s servants appeared to see if they needed anything. Michael and Jack asked for dinner, Geoff just shook his head, and Ray mumbled something in the steward’s ear. Gavin just heard the word ‘Alaya’.

“Is there anything I can get you, m’lord?” Gavin opened his mouth to tell the steward that no, he would be fine, but the other four men were watching him, so he simply replied, “a woman”. In truth he had no desire to take a whore to bed, but the other men– and anyone else who might be listening– would think it extremely peculiar that he didn’t want a woman after being blooded. It wasn’t bloodshed he’d experienced, truly, but it was almost a battle of sorts. He didn’t mean to give anyone any more reasons to think him odd. Geoff and Jack had their wives, Michael swore to remain true to his, and Ray’s flirtations with the Myrish serving girl had apparently paid off.

The steward didn’t bring the girl until the men had all retreated into their own chambers. She came in wearing a simply blue-grey dress and looked to be a few years younger than Gavin, curvaceous bordering on plump, with long golden-brown hair and blue-green eyes– pretty in a common sort of way. “What’s your name?” Gavin asked, “and what will I owe you to just stay here and not sleep with me?”

“Alannys, but I won’t be any sort of whore. Your steward didn’t tell me why you wanted me, but I just do the laundry, ser.”

“I’m not a ser, nor a lord. Just call me Gavin.” He poured two cups of wine and waved at Alannys to sit down and drink. She did, albeit with crossed arms and a suspicious expression.

“Gavin of House…?”

“Free.”

“Not familiar with House Free.”

“You wouldn’t be, it’s not a Westerosi name. I was born in Braavos, went to foster at Seagard in the Riverlands, ended up here. Can you keep a secret, Alannys?”

She took a sip of the Dornish wine and regarded him with thoughtful eyes. “For a price.”

“I thought you were no whore.”

“You can’t pay me to stick your cock in me, I said. I’ll keep any secret I’m paid to keep.” She looked so nonchalant about it all, Gavin couldn’t help but be a little impressed. It took a certain shrewdness to survive King’s Landing and he liked that this laundry-woman possessed it.

“All right, you’ll get your payment. I came to King’s Landing to slay the king and take his place on the iron throne.” He expected some shock, perhaps a threat to tell the king, but all he got was a derisive snort.

“You can try. You’ll fail, but if the gods decide you won’t, well, the bastard has it coming.” She took another drink, and Gavin cocked his head to regard her carefully.

“What’s your full name?”

“Alannys Storm if it please m’lord. And if it doesn’t as well.” Yes, that was no surprise. She had the boldness of a bastard and all the lightning the Stormlands could give.

“I think I like you, Alannys Storm.”

She shrugged and finished her cup of wine. “Your mistake.”


	4. High Stakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter for a short challenge. Hope you enjoy!

“Oh, everything is aching,” Michael moaned as he shuffled down the corridor towards their morning meal. “And everything that isn’t aching is numb. How many more days do we have to do this?”

“Try training to be a knight and then you can talk about aches,” Geoff dismissed with a snort. Still, in truth he was hurting about as much as Michael sounded like he did. He just knew better than to bother complaining about it, and he’d been training for knighthood since before Michael was born. He’d learned to push the pain away.

The others showed their pain a little more subtly; Jack was limping, though if anyone brought it up he swore he wasn’t, and Ray’s muscles were trembling with the effort of keeping him upright.

Only Gavin strutted along proudly, and the others wondered once again if he was truly human.

They broke their fast with the king not in attendance, Geoff too nervous to eat much beyond downing a skin of ale, Michael inhaling black sausages at an alarming rate. Eventually, when Gavin was halfway through struggling to peel an orange, a messenger appeared to tell them that the king awaited them. Gavin left the orange behind a little sadly; he hadn’t had one in many years and wasn’t sure when his next chance would be.

They followed the messenger through a twisting maze of corridors until they reached a wide, empty room. Geoff was sure he’d been here before, although then it had been filled with dragon skulls. He wondered where they’d been moved to and why. Michael, who had a good amount of experience with mechanical things, squinted at the floor for fear it might open up to some kind of chasm or pit. Jack spied six woven baskets lined up neatly against a wall and peered inside, but they were empty. Only Gavin thought to look up, and when he did his gasp alerted the other four.

There was a sort of square hung from the ceiling, four connecting rows of heavy metal boxes with grated doors on the bottom. It seemed to work on a pulley system; if someone gave a sharp tug, the doors would open, releasing whatever was inside. If they pulled the rope and then released it quickly, and then repeated that motion, they could release different amounts of things at different times. Indeed, there was a servant in a yellowy tunic standing beside a rope and pulley, but he was not alone; the king was up there too, gold crown shining. “Hullo,” he called down.  
“When any of you were children, did you happen to play a game called ‘pick-up sticks’?”

There were a few moments of silence before Ray called up “yes”. The king may have smiled, but he was far enough away that it was hard to tell. “This is a… variation on that, called ‘pick-up steaks’.” There was polite laughter. “The object of the game is to collect as many steaks as you can find. You may pick up other items that fall as well, but they will take up space in your basket and you will not win by collecting them. You can each pick up a basket over there and then we will begin.”

Hesitantly they went over to the baskets, wary of a trap, and slipped the strap over their heads so that the basket rested against their stomachs. “D’you think these can hold anything?” Michael murmured to Geoff. “They seem very light…”

“They will hold everything just fine,” the king called down and Michael shivered. He didn’t like being overheard. “Also, you may steal from each other’s baskets, if you so desire. Go.” He signaled to the servant to start pumping the rope, and the men below starting swearing.

It was a massacre. Animals began falling from the sky, chickens squawking and fluttering around, cow-shaped bundles of steaks wrapped in leather, young pigs that splattered on the stone floor, fish and small squid from the northern seas… The floor quickly became a slurry of blood and flesh. Ray was fairly sure that at least one of the piles of fat and bone had once been a corpse.

Still, they did what they were bid and collected the steaks were they fell. They were in the most numerous supply of all the falling objects, luckily, so they didn’t have to try too hard to find them. They occasionally picked up other things as well: bits of leather, sheep’s wool, bits of squid, cooked meat as well as the raw. “Oh, this is brutal,” Geoff shouted, blood in his hair. He sounded more okay than he felt. He’d never balked at bloodshed– if he had, he’d never have been a knight– but this was the worst thing he’d ever seen. It was horrible.

Occasionally something on fire would fall from the ceiling as well and they would have to beat the flames back. Michael singed his breeches. Ray choked back a sob and Jack silently tried to block everything out and Gavin, out of madness or an inability to process such horrors, just laughed.

The noise was horrible. The screaming of the dying pigs, the clucking of the birds, the sick, wet sound of flesh hitting the ground… and all that before the alarmed shouting of the men, talking over each other in hopes that their voices would drown out the animals. They failed, but they hoped.

Geoff gritted his teeth and remembered why he was here. His daughter, his sweet little daughter, all for her, to keep her safe, but at what cost? She loved animals, to see her father doing something like this would kill her. I am never going to get this out of my mind, he realized. Every time I close my eyes I will see what I’ve done, I will see that I’m part of a slaughter.

In another part of the room, Michael was chasing Gavin. He snatched the basket of steak from his shoulder and shoved him away, hard. Gavin sprawled on the floor… and promptly disappeared, having fallen through a trapdoor. Michael, ashen-faced, dropped to his knees to peer into the hole. “Gavin? Are you alright?”

“Right, yeah, fine,” he said irritably. He was a little sore from the fall but was more annoyed by the fact that he’d lost his steak and would have to find his way back to the hall before he could do anything else. He raced back there as fast as he could, asking for directions when possible.

There was a flash of darkness and a shout of annoyance when the king dropped his sword into the fray. “Use it if you like, it hardly matters.” Jack snatched it up and used it to beat back a flaming scarecrow. He could hardly celebrate for long, however, because Gavin had made it back, punched him out, and took his steak and sword, breathing hard from the exertion, sweat running down his face in rivulets through the blood. Of course, Michael, pugnacious as ever and relieved that Gavin wasn’t hurt, promptly stole Jack’s steak from Gavin and shoved him away.

“As there is no more steak left on the floor, please stop, step away from the middle and off to the sides to count what’s in your basket,” the king ordered, and they obeyed, relieved to get away from the blood and guts. “Call out your number when you have counted, and from there we will determine the winner.”

“I have sixty-five,” Jack yelled out shortly after.

“Your Grace, I have one,” Gavin said, failing to hold back his fury. He had Jack’s steaks for a while, he didn’t have to lose by such a dismal amount, and yet he did it again, he failed, he lost.

“I have… two hundred and twenty-eight, Your Grace,” Ray offered hesitantly.

“Ray wins,” Geoff and Michael said together. Michael’s one thirty-seven and Geoff’s one twenty-eight didn’t compare.

“Then congratulations are in order for Ray. I will have my Hand mark it down. I will speak to you all again after the midday meal.” He dismissed them, and they dropped their baskets, leaving a trail of blood behind them as they left the room. Gavin had a piece of organ stuck to his boot and it made a nasty squelch with every step.

As soon as they got outside the room, Geoff sat against the wall, buried his head in his arms, and shook with silent sobs. Jack tried his best to comfort him, but he was surprised; Geoff showing a weakness like this was a rare sight indeed, and he must have been truly upset to cry like that. After a while, though, he wiped his eyes, shook some of the blood from his hair, and stood up, clearing his throat. “That didn’t happen.”

“No, it didn’t,” Ray agreed. “That was the worst time of my life. It can’t get worse from here?”

“One thing to keep in mind,” Gavin said thoughtfully, “is that it can always get worse.”


	5. Trigger Happy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize that this took so long to get out. I wasn't really sure how it was going to go. The next chapter will be up sooner. I hope you enjoy!

“So who was that girl you brought back to your rooms last night?” Michael asked Gavin with a nudge of his shoulder. He clearly felt guilty about the way he treated the younger man in the last event; while everyone knew how fierce Michael could get, and while they all for the most part accepted it, he still realized that it wasn’t always fair to someone like Gavin, who looked so skinny he could just blow away on the next heavy breeze.

“Just some bird,” Gavin replied. He didn’t feel much like talking about Alannys Storm, if only because thinking about the way she calmly drank him under the table made his head start to ache all over again. She was a good conversationalist, almost funny in a dry sort of way. If he could say it without sounding egotistical (and he thought he could), it was a relief to find a woman who had no interest in bedding or wedding him. The girls around Seagard thought his Braavosi accent was pretty, thought his clumsiness was pretty, thought his green eyes were pretty. Alannys Storm thought he was foolish and lanky.

“You gonna see her again?”

“Is it cheaper if I have her a second time?” He took a deep drag of wine and hoped the talk would stop there. It did, for him; Michael shrugged, tore the leg off a glistening brown turkey and turned to Jack, asking first if he knew where Ray was and then, upon receiving a negative answer, what Barrowton was like this time of year. Gavin let his mind wander as he gnawed on a heel of brown bread and tried to convince himself that there was nothing particularly special about eyes the color of the southern seas.

He was lost in that argument for quite a while and so jumped when he felt a light tap on his shoulder. He turned to see Geoff’s little daughter standing there, long brunette hair streaming down her back. She was young enough that she hadn’t yet made the transition from short dresses to gowns. Gavin had only met her a handful of times, but he was pretty sure her name was Millie. 

“Hello,” he said. “What are you doing down here? Shouldn’t you be with your mother?”

She shook her head. “She’s fighting with Father again.”

Gavin didn’t like the way she looked sadly resigned to that fact. He’d always had a soft spot for children, particularly children who didn’t feel like they belonged, because he’d spent a good half of his life feeling out of place. Millie didn’t seem comfortable at all in King’s Landing, and though it didn’t seem like anyone did, she was so young and all alone… “You should still go back there. It isn’t safe for you to be wandering around the Keep all alone.” That was true enough. After the horrors he’d witnessed that morning, he didn’t want her anywhere near the place.

She nodded. “Can you help me get back?”

“Just so.” He took her by the hand and led her up the spiraling stone steps and down a handful of corridors to Geoff’s suite of rooms. The closer he got, the louder the yelling became.

“You’re not staying here and that’s final!” Geoff shouted, throwing some clothes of Millie’s into a traveling case.

“I am your wife! You cannot send me away like a whore you can’t be bothered to keep paying! I’m staying here as long as you are!”

“You’re not going home, you’re just going into the city, where it’s safer. I’m bloody trying to keep you safe! It isn’t safe here, it isn’t safe anywhere around here, I’m sending you to the safest place in the city. The king is mad, Griffon, I’m not keeping you and Millie directly under his roof!”

Griffon clenched her fists and let out a little scream of frustration through gritted teeth. There was a slight creak as the door pushed open and Gavin’s voice said, “Not sure I’d just go shouting that around, mate. Never sure who’s listening.”

Geoff spun at the sound of his voice, heart racing, because while he’d known Gavin for years, he had begun to see a side of him he’d never seen before, he he wasn’t sure he could trust anyone in the Capitol. “How long have you been listening?” he barked.

Millie shrunk back against Gavin at the rough tone and Geoff felt suddenly guilty. He’d just wanted to protect his daughter and she’d wandered away to gods-know-where and now he was frightening her. “Just a moment,” Gavin replied coolly, and Griffon beckoned for Millie to come to her, enfolding her in a tight embrace and apologizing for the scare. Geoff couldn’t look Millie in the eye, sure that if he did he would see the reflection of himself he saw this morning, bloody and battered and brutal. She deserved a better father than that.

“Wife, pack. I’m not joking. You need to leave as soon as you can, I should never have brought you here.”

Griffon straightened up, one hand stroking back Millie’s hair. She took several deep breaths, and Geoff knew the worst part of the fight was over. He couldn’t pretend he was anything but relieved; he was right, but Griffon was a force to fight with, and he hated to see her angry, blue eyes narrowed into slits. “I will leave,” she said finally. “If you tell me again to leave, I will leave and take our daughter with us. But know this, Geoffrey: I will not come back.”

Geoff straightened his spine, even feeling the ache in his back as he did. He was angry all over again as he felt the twinge, because it was that weakness that meant he was unable to protect his wife any longer. He saw it a little more every day in the rising recovery time for even minor injuries, in the grey hair on his head and chin, in the aches and pains of his increasingly useless body.  
He straightened his doublet. “Pack.” He turned on his heel and followed Gavin into the corridor, keeping his face straight. If I look back I am lost.

“What do you want?”

“Nothing,” Gavin said with an unreadable smile. “Your daughter was wandering around so I thought fit to return her. Is everything alright with your wife?”

“Fine,” he said, the word sharp as shattered glass. “She’s going to be safe now. Does the king need us yet?”

“Not quite. You ought to eat something first. Have you seen Ray?”

“No. He’ll turn up. Always does. Everything always works out, doesn’t it? Everything’s always just bloody fine in the end!” He stalked away towards the dining room, growing more certain all the time that nothing would ever really be okay again.

Back in his bedchamber, safe from the prying eyes of the king’s servants, Ray tugged his breeches back on and laced them, a little tighter every day. He was having trouble keeping food down in the Capitol. He liked to tell the others that it was because everything was so bland compared to the fiery Dornish food he was accustomed to because it wouldn’t do to say that it was stress.

Alaya, the Myrish serving girl with dusky skin and the hugest dark eyes he’d ever seen, rolled over in his bed to face him, pretty little mouth set in a pouting bow. “Come back to bed, m’lord,” she asked in a husky voice.

Ray chuckled mirthlessly as he finished dressing. “Did I leave you so unsatisfied that you need me again so soon?”

“Leaving a woman wanting more is something more men should be able to do, I think.” He wanted to turn to her and crawl back into her arms, feel the brush of her eyelashes against his cheek and smell the sweet rosewater perfume she dabbed on her neck, but he knew that if he looked at her he would be lost. Besides, he hadn’t even bathed after the horrible events of the morning; his hair was caked with dried blood and he was sure it was only the hope of silver that kept Alaya from saying anything. He would have had time to bathe if he hadn’t tumbled into bed like a randy stable boy, but it was too late for that now.

“I have to go. Will you come again tonight?”

“If m’lord would like to me to, I will.” He looked over at her despite himself. She had her back turned to him as she slipped her dress on. There was a splotch of blood on her left shoulder. Ray ran out onto the balcony and vomited whatever little was in his stomach over the edge. The loneliness couldn’t be worth this.

By the time he’d finished heaving Alaya was long gone, so he sat on the rumpled bed to tug his boots on. He felt light-headed as he stumbled down to the dining hall, but couldn’t stomach the thought of having anything to eat. Michael at least urged him to drink, to take a drag from a skin of ale or sip from strong wine, but he didn’t care much for the thought. “Can we not just get on with the next challenge?”

“It’s funny that you should say that,” the king’s voice said, and Ray nearly fell out of his seat. The king appeared around a corner, curving smile almost seductive in combination with heavy-lidded blue eyes. The gold coronet he wore glinted in the candlelight like pure, woven sunlight. Rather unusually in this modern day, he wore a heavy woolen kilt that marked him as being from the North. More than one person had remarked on its similarities to a woman’s skirt, but none of them were saying it anymore. Not for the first time, the group thought it a waste that a king like Ryan could have such a handsome, trustworthy face. “Follow me.”

The king led them outside to the place where they had their first challenge, except it looked as if some of the trees had been removed to make a small sort of clearing. Kerry handed out dulled practice swords to each of them, and Geoff, not for the first time, missed the familiar weight of his own weapon, but when the king had taken them in the first challenge he had not yet returned them. “I think this afternoon we will partake in a little team-breaking exercise,” he said smoothly, though the effect was ruined somewhat by the clucking of a half-dozen chickens that were wandering around. “You have been working well together on the last few of my challenges, hardly quarreling at all. That of course is a good thing,” though his tone made it sound anything but, “but, well, none of you will win if you help each other, and there’s no fun in that.”

The king drew himself up to his full height, which was taller than any of the others. “You have five minutes. Draw blood from your teammates, and for every cut, give yourself a point. The one with the most when the time has run out will be our victor. As always, no fatalities if at all avoidable. Ser Geoff, please remove your armor before you begin.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” Geoff, hands slightly shaking, removed the leather he’d worn over his clothing. His body felt uncomfortably light after he’d done it.

“And now… begin.”

If it were another day, Ray might have taken it easily. He was far and away the best fighter of the group, his body fluent in the patterns of Westerosi and Dornish fighting styles, with a hint of Braavosi as well, though he was still learning that. But the choice of sex over lunch, and indeed the lack of food and sleep at all recently, made him sluggish and weak.

Surprising everyone, Jack got the first hit in, laying a thin slice onto Geoff, who cried out irritably as his sleeve was stained dark red. Jack’s strength would give him an advantage; Geoff had experience, Ray had skill and agility, Michael had discipline, and Gavin had unpredictability, but Jack was strong, and he was good at defense. If he could parry enough blows, he would probably come out of this alright.

From there it was a madhouse. Gavin got Geoff while he was distracted, but Michael came up behind him and got him across the back of his calf. Gavin ran, but Ray caught him easily, and then Michael got another go at him while Jack got Geoff again.

Michael had the hardest time of it. He had been taught from a young age that he was always to do what was honorable, what was right. He would be strong and he would be merciful. He would fight for king and country and never harm an innocent man. That was just his father, though; when he’d learned to fight with a sword, his instructor had given him the right of it. ‘Fuck king an’ country,’ he’d said. ‘Fight fer ye’self, fer glory an’ th’ attention o’ pretty lasses.’

He hadn’t meant to live by that code. He came to King’s Landing against Lindsay’s advice because the king summoned him, and the king was cruel and mad and it wasn’t safe here but he was his king. But now his king was the one who handed him a sword and told him to drawn blood from men much older than him, men weaker than him, men without his determination or training. Fuck the king. He was here for glory, and he’d have it.

The longer the fight went on, the more the winner became obvious. Michael spun like a puppet with twisted strings, dealing blows at every turn, mostly at Gavin, who for all his skill in archery knew bugger all about fighting with a sword, but occasionally at Jack as well. Most of the way through the fight, when the average score among Geoff, Jack, Gavin, and Ray was about three, Michael had ten. The others had taken more to running from Michael than trying to win of their own accord.

By the time the end of the fight was called, Michael had clearly won by quite a bit, so Kerry marked him down the winner and sent them on their way to wash up before dinner. Gavin left a thin trail of blood droplets wherever he moved from the injuries he’d suffered, although thankfully none of the wounds were particularly deep.

“I’ve got enough blood in my hair to fill another person,” Ray complained, running his hand through his dark locks and pulling it away to see his fingers stained reddish-brown. “Jack, I’m sorry I kept going after you, but once you dropped your sword…”

Jack shook his head. “Don’t think on it. There was never a chance I was going to win anything that meant I had to fight.” He rubbed his neck. He never wanted to be a fighter, never considered himself a good one, never really cared, but being surrounded by such talented men did leave him feeling a little… inadequate. It brought back too many memories of being knocked in the snow by his older brother. He’d lost everything he had to his brother. His father loved him better, he inherited Barrowton after his parent’s death, he even convinced the girl Jack had courted as a young man to choose him instead. He wasn’t fit to be here. He was no help at all. “Did anyone else think how easy it would have been to turn and stab the king?”

“If you can kill him with a practice sword, by all means, try,” Michael said dryly. “And in three seconds when the Hand and half the gold cloaks in the city are beheading you for treason, well, perhaps we’ll mourn you.”

“Oh, hush,” Gavin told him. He still looked bitter at the amount of times Michael had used him as a whetstone. “I thought of it as well. We’ll have our chance.”

Will we? Jack thought. As far as he could tell, they were getting farther and farther from killing the king, and only getting closer to their own graves.


	6. Fetch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special shoutout to my boyfriend, who wrote the first draft of this chapter because I joked about how I'd rather read this story than write it. Some changes were made and some weren't. Anyway. He's the best.

Geoff had a hard time sleeping that night. He soaked in a tub of hot water and scrubbed himself raw trying to get all the blood off himself and then clumsily bandaged up his battered forearms. His bed was far too empty without his wife in it, and in fact he couldn’t remember the last night he’d spent without her. He found himself grievously unsuited to loneliness.

The night was hard but the morning was harder, that split second before he remembered again, where Geoff smiled and rolled over and looked for the sweet smile of his beloved wife, where the pain was gone and it was just like the morning after his wedding all over again… but nothing lasts forever, and when he saw the empty space beside him, Geoff felt like he’d swallowed lead. It was all he could do to drag himself out of bed and down to the dining hall.

“I think I might die,” he confided in Michael, one of the few people he could trust and one of the even fewer who might understand his predicament. I love her, I want her safe, but I’m not sure that’s worth… all this.”

“The city’s not safe. Not for a woman and child by themselves,” Michael told him. “They’ll be safer at home than they would in King’s Landing without you to protect them. Who did you choose to escort them?”

“Two of the gold cloaks. I don’t know who, it’s probably safer that I don’t know. I talked to Caleb Denacour, he set it up.”

“Caleb? Caleb’s the head of the gold cloaks. Caleb reports directly to the king, how long do you think he can keep this secret?”

“He’ll keep it.” He said it with such finality that Michael didn’t want to ask how he could be so sure. He did all he could do; he pleaded with him, he paid him off, he threatened him. Anything to keep Griffon and Millie safe. If he was executed for it, so be it, as long as they went so far Ryan couldn’t touch them. “I thought I wouldn’t ever feel anything as strongly as I loved her. I didn’t expect that I would miss her more than I loved her.”

Michael nodded at the all-too-familiar feeling, but then some force shook him awake and he clenched his jaw. “There’s no good talking like that. They’re gone and you’re here, and there’s nothing else you can do but fight as hard as you can to stay alive.”

Geoff felt vaguely chastised. He shut his mouth and kept it shut until Kerry asked them all to come outside. The king was waiting for them just outside, mounted on a spectacular chestnut mare. The cape of deep red velvet he wore cascaded over his shoulders and lay smoothly over the horse’s flanks. “Welcome, champions. You’re early. I appreciate punctuality. I trust that everyone is well-fed and well-rested?” No one answered, and the king continued anyway. “Today’s task will be somewhat more of a challenge than the previous ones. If you will all follow me, I will take you to it, and then we’re going to play a game of fetch.”

As they walked behind the king’s horse, four of the men kept their eyes on the ground. None of the wanted to look at the king, or the Hand, riding tall on his own horse, or at each other. They had all had enough of this tourney and they were ready to go home. The only exception was Gavin, who continued to stand tall and stare at the back of the king’s head.

“Gavin,” Jack whispered. “Why do you keep staring at the king?”

“It’s more interesting than the ground,” Gavin replied smoothly.

“I can’t tell if you’re bloody stupid or if you’re going to shove a sword through the back of his head. That is, even more bloody stupid.” Jack kept his head down, bit his tongue, and prayed that the king hadn’t heard him, and luckily he didn’t seem to.

Strangely, the king led them through the twisted streets of Flea Bottom. The streets were strangely and uncomfortably quiet. Geoff felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and his skin started to prickle. Flea Bottom was loud and it was crowded, and for this section to be abandoned couldn’t be a good sign.

The king stopped in front of a large pit in the ground. In the center of the pit was an even smaller and darker indentation, which had no recognizable bottom. What was once a sludgy stream slid into the pit on one side, creating a murky waterfall. Beside it was a broken husk of a building, just piles of thin wood with what appeared to be a woman’s hand sticking out from underneath.

“There were people here, weren’t there?” Geoff asked. “Part of a village.”

“A small one,” the king responded. “An inn, a whorehouse. No one that anyone’s going to miss.” The men stood silent. Jack felt a little sick, thinking that everyone ought to be missed. “Now, here is your task. At the bottom of this pit, there is something that I require. The first of you to find it and retrieve it will be the winner.”

“How will we know when we’ve found it?” Ray asked.

The king smirked, and Ray found it so unsettling he almost regretted asking the question. “Oh, you’ll know. You may get to the bottom of the pit by any means you choose, and should one of your opponents find the object first, you may take it from them by any means you desire.”

Ray, impulsive in the way only the young can be, just ran into the pit, stumbling and nearly falling into the deep hole in the center. “That was a bad idea,” he whispered, more to himself than anything else.

“Okay,” Geoff said. “We’ll take this slow, and when we get to the bottom, we can–”

“Whoops, too late,” Ray said before sliding into the waterfall and disappearing into the hole.

“Ray? Ray!” Michael hopped into the pit and raced to the hole, falling to his knees and staring down, desperately hoping to catch sight of Ray, but it was black as pitch and he always work dark colors. He knew he should be more careful, shouldn’t be seen to care too much about whether his companions lived or died, but he hadn’t ever wanted it to end so suddenly for one of them.

“Do we jump down, and hope there’s something at the bottom to break our fall?” Gavin asked Geoff, as lightly as if he was asking if it was meant to rain tomorrow. Michael stared at him furiously, eyes crackling and teeth bared.

“Look at the sides,” Jack said, ever the peacemaker. “There are sturdy rocks, footholds, things like that. We can climb down.” Gavin and Geoff agreed, but Michael wouldn’t be outdone. What Ray could do, he would do, and damn the consequences. To everyone’s surprise, it was easy to get down. The rocks were so sturdy as to be almost stairs and the waterfall collected in a swampy pool at the bottom of the pit. Some of the scrapped wood that was out of reach of the waterfall was burning, and the air was thick was smoke.

Ray had found a haphazard house of stone and was wrestling with the iron door. Michael helped him wrench it open and hoped that was enough to tell Ray that he cared that he’d made it out alive. Still, this was a competition, and as soon as the door was thrown open he shoved Ray aside and entered the structure. There didn’t seem to be any traps, just a heavy wooden chest in the middle of the floor with flies buzzing around it. The smell was nauseating.

Michael threw the chest open and swallowed back the vomit that crept up his throat. In the chest was a calf’s head, rotted and crawling with maggots, one eye missing. There was a sack next to the chest, which he snatched up and shoved the head into. As he picked it up by one ear, the other eye fell out with a sickening squelch.

He moved towards the exit, but Geoff and Gavin were there, training swords drawn. Michael assessed the situation; he had the head, but he needed to get past these two to get it up to the king. Gavin was an idiot and Geoff’s eyes were watering from the smoke. He could probably get past them, if the head wasn’t as cumbersome as he feared. He considered Ray, out of sight, and Jack, nowhere around but possibly staging an ambush. So he did what he always did when confronted with a fight with unwinnable odds: he smiled.

“If you want the sack, boys, come and take it.” Geoff and Gavin exchanged glances and then Geoff moves in, swinging at Michael’s left, the hand he held the sack in. Michael ducked, swung around and kicked Geoff in the back, knocking him against the house. The impact caused a few rocks to shake loose of the house, giving Geoff some pause. A chance was a chance.

Gavin, more agile than Geoff, gave Michael a slightly better fight in a sense. He wasn’t weighed down by the head and was at least fast, if nothing else. He tackled Michael, grabbed the sack, kicked Michael’s hand away, and ran for the edge of the pit, starting to climb up. He had a good lead, but he hadn’t anticipated all the things that Michael had, and Jack snuck up on him. Gavin fought like a cornered cat, but Jack was bigger and stronger, and that force won out.

The Mad King and his Hand stood at the top of the pit. “Who do you expect to win this round, Your Grace?” Kerry asked conversationally.

Ryan didn’t look at him. “I know who’s going to win. I’m going to make it happen.”

“How do you plan to do that?”

“You will see. I have it all planned it out. Do you think I let this all be determined by luck? No. Of course the Braavosi would win the challenge that required nothing more than cowardice, and of course the bastard would win the challenge that required quickness and resilience, and of course the young lordling would win the challenge that required brute force. So who better to win a challenge of taking orders than an anointed knight?”

By this point, all five men were alert and ready, racing to the top of the pit. Geoff had taken the sack and had made it to an outcropping of rock close to the top of the pit. Ray made it to him first, but he’d dropped his sword in his haste and had nothing but his fists. Of course, neither did Geoff. In what he would later call tactical skill but others might call panic, he attacked, swiftly punching Ray across the jaw and racing away, only to run into Jack.

Jack took it from Geoff, but Gavin met Jack with eyes like wildfire and a grin from a child’s nightmare. He still had his sword and had Jack against a wall, so close to the edge of the pit that one wrong move would send Jack to his death.

“Here,” Jack pleaded. “Take it. It’s yours.”

Gavin took it. “I’m glad we could agree on that.” He kept on climbing, and Jack sighed shakily. Eventually he came across a corridor cut into the earth and ran down it, Michael close behind, but he slipped and fell into a hole. He couldn’t escape, but Michael couldn’t hurt him, either. Ray and Jack were close behind.

Only Geoff stayed where he was, on the platform where Jack had taken the sack from him, catching his breath. He was resigned to lose this challenge the way he’d lost the others.

“Hello, Geoff.” The king was beside him now, lounging against the wall with a hungry look.

“Your Grace! I– how did you get down here?”

“I have my ways. I’ve put so much planning into all this.”

“I suppose that’s why I haven’t won, eh? You’ve been working against me.” He said it light-heartedly, a simple jest to soothe his shattered nerves, but he realized how true it might be.

“Quite the contrary, ser.” Ryan dropped a sack next to Geoff. He picked it up warily and peeked inside, and it was another calf head, identical to the one his companions had buried themselves fighting for. He wondered how many casualties these games would bring and whether they would all be animals.

Geoff closed the sack, sick of looking at the neck, thick with congealed blood. “Why me?”

The king didn’t seem to hear, just looked at the corridor where the other four had long since disappeared. “Do you know the story of how I became king, Geoff?”

He’d heard rumors, they all had. “You are the rightful king,” he said carefully. “The first King Ryan come again. You took the throne from the Usurper.”

“So they say. So I say. It may be a lie, of course. How about that? I am not quite sure whether or not I’m lying about my claim anymore.” The sun climbed higher in the sky and the light refracting off the crystal in his coronet made him look ethereal. “What I do know is that I wanted the crown, and so I killed King Michael in his sleep and took his crown.”

“But… why?” A dangerous question.

“Because that is what we do, Geoff, people like us. We seek power and take it from those too weak to handle it. You were named for Geoff the Conqueror; do you never wish to leave a legacy as he did? He was killed by the king that shared my name. That is the game we play, you and I. Someday, my bloodline’s reign will end. Maybe I will be killed and a man will place this blood-soaked crown on his own brow. Maybe it will be my son or grandson, I do not know. But that day will come.”

“I don’t… understand. Why? Why me? What do I have to do with all of this?”

“Do you think I would choose the six most competent men in Westeros for no reason? Do you think I would take men who have the greatest reasons to wish me dead and shower them with greater glories? No, ser. No, I could kill you myself if I desired, but I believe my countrymen would have something to say about that. Sentiment is a losing game.” He waved his hand dismissively. “If I offer you the greatest prize in the kingdoms, to be honored by the king himself, and you fail in that task, I am hardly to blame.”

Answers to questions Geoff had never asked, and not the answer to the one he had. “But you’re telling me for a reason.”

“I am. You pose the least threat. Jack could rally the whole North to his side if need be. Michael is rash and hotheaded and would kill me now if he could. Ray, well, you’ve seen him fight. My people love him. Gavin is brother to the First Sword of Braavos, did you know that?”

He hadn’t. He wondered why Gavin hadn’t ever told him that.

“We all do what we must to survive. I assure you, the last thing Westeros needs is the war that will come with my death. I am doing what I need to do for the good of the country.” There was something about that crystal in the sunlight, the way Ryan’s eyes sparkled, the lack of his usual smirk, the sincerity in his voice… Perhaps the king wasn’t mad, just twisted, perhaps he really was doing what he had to do… “And I know that you, unlike the others, will not tell a soul.”

“I ought to. By rights, I ought to.”

“I know that. And yet you will not, or your pretty little wife will find her way to a pretty little grave.”

Geoff’s heart stopped for a few beats. “G-Griffon?” he stuttered, mouth dry. “She’s–”

“Safe for now, unless I will otherwise.” The smirk was back, and the rubies in the king’s chain glittered like drops of blood. “There are no secrets in my kingdom.”

“Caleb,” Geoff murmured under his breath, partly in shock and partly with murderous intent.

“Oh no, not Caleb.” The king turned vicious in an instant, shoving Geoff against the pit’s wall so hard that his head spun. “Don’t you ever think you can keep secrets from me, ser. ‘The king is mad. I won’t have you under his roof.’ Don’t think that bastard Gavin will keep your secrets for you. It was so easy to make him tell me, I half thought he was eager for it.” The language of the admission made it sound as if he was talking about a particularly promiscuous woman and not his longtime friend and companion.

Just then, Ray popped up out of the corridor with dirt on his face, swearing under his breath. “Oh,” he said, stopping dead when he saw the king. “Your Grace, Gavin has lost the sack, and now he’s stuck in some bloody hole.”

“That is quite all right, since Ser Geoff has already brought it to me.” He gestured to the burlap sack clutched tightly in Geoff’s hand. “Congratulate your victor. Geoff, you will follow me back to the Keep. Ray, you and the others will return after you have freed Gavin and not before.”

The walk back to the Keep seemed much shorter than before. Geoff said his dazed farewells to the king and Hand and went back to his chamber to wash his face and change his clothes. He mulled over the king’s words as he did, and by the time he emerged from the chamber to head down to the dining hall, the other four were just returning, smiling and chatting. Gavin laughed at a remark of Ray’s, and Geoff snapped, drawing his dagger.

“You goddamn bastard!” he shouted, shoving Gavin against the wall and holding him at the throat, his dagger pressed to Gavin’s stomach. The sharpened tip was already drawing blood. “You think you can just be the king’s whore and no one would find out, is that it? I should kill you right now, if anything happens to my wife and daughter I assure you that I will. I ought to shove this dagger so far into your throat that you can taste it. I ought to let you suffer.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jack said, trying and failing to pull Geoff away from Gavin.

“He sold my family to the Mad King. I’ll kill him for it. Who knows what else he’s told him!”

Gavin stared back at him unblinkingly, didn’t say a word… just smiled.


	7. Bombs Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The longest chapter yet, I think! Anyway, I didn't write Kerry in a very flattering light, but I do like him quite a lot. Less Kerry hate in the fandom would be a good thing. Enjoy!

Nothing in the world was as beautiful at that moment as Gavin’s little pained whimpers, the gasps that came with breathlessness from where Geoff’s hand was pressed to his throat. No sound that Geoff had ever heard, not the laughter of his wife, not the first time his little girl called him “father”, none compared to the sweet feral justice of watching Gavin, wide-eyed and increasingly red-faced, struggling for every breath.

“Gavin, is this true?” Michael asked, disappointment bordering on anger. He was starting to get friendly with the stupid kid, but if he had truly sold them out…

“It doesn’t matter if it’s true,” Ray said, trying to wrench Geoff’s knife away from Gavin’s belly, “because he’s practically your family, Geoff. You cannot kill your kin, blood relation or not. We’ll figure this out, just get away from him!”

There was a part of him that knew Ray was right, but he couldn’t bring himself to care because he finally knew how good it could feel to watch a man die, and every sound was supplication and every moment was gospel, this was the knight’s prayer, this was the Warrior’s work, this was… this was…

This quickly became nothing when Ray struck like a serpent, kicking the knife out of his hand and his other hand from Gavin’s throat, quick blows to his jaw and chest making him lose his wind and give up the fight. He’d seen Ray fight before in the viper-quick Dornish style but he’d never realized how much of a misfortune it would be to have it turned on him. Gavin, released from his grip, collapsed to his hands and knees, flushed and gasping. Michael knelt to attend to him.

“Is he going to be okay?” Jack asked, looking at Gavin with concern in his eyes.

“I think so,” Michael said, touching surprisingly gentle fingers to Gavin’s neck. He’d seen enough fighting injuries, broken enough bones, that he could gauge the relative scale of a wound with a fair amount of accuracy.

“Doesn’t… anyone… care,” Geoff wheezed, “that my family… could be dead… thanks to… him?”

No one said anything, and it seemed like they were picking their sides. Geoff figured he could count on Michael and maybe Ray to see his side of things, but he could already tell he’d lost Jack. “We knew this would be dangerous,” Michael said quietly, and Geoff felt the last of his remaining strength leave him as he slumped to the ground.

“It was going to be dangerous but it wasn’t supposed to hurt my family,” Geoff said, voice cracking. “My little girl, my daughter… she could be dead because of this bastard, and you’re going to protect him.”

“Ser, who told you all of this? The Hand?” Ray asked.

“The king.”

“You know better than to trust the king’s word. You know he hopes we’ll all kill each other before he’s through with us.”

“But he… he knew exactly what I said, he knew what I said to Griffon before she left, and Gavin was right outside the door…”

Ray sat on the floor beside him and put a comforting hand on his knee. “Maybe a servant could hear you, it could have been anyone. There’s no reason it should be Gavin. We can’t fight among each other, Geoff. If we want to make it out alive, if you want to see your wife and children safely back home, we have to trust each other.”

There was almost a latent threat in the words, but Geoff shook his head clear of it. He was becoming overly suspicious these days, but even with that in mind, he couldn’t bear to accept that Gavin had nothing to do with this. It may have been a small chance, but it was risky enough for his family to get back to Griffon’s Roost. He couldn’t risk anything else, not with their heads on the line. Though what could Gavin gain from whoring his information to the king? His trust, to get him closer to the king to kill him? Advantages in upcoming challenges? An assurance that if things go bad, he will be protected? He didn’t know. “I won’t trust him,” Geoff said finally, “but I won’t kill him either, at least not until I have proof.”

“Do you swear on the Seven?”

“I do so swear. But know it now,” he said to Gavin, who was heaving himself to his feet with Michael’s support, “if anything happens to my family, anything at all, I will shove my sword so deep into your heart that your blood will stain the iron, and my grandchildren’s grandchildren will know how I suffer traitors.” He stood up as well, shaking off Ray’s would-be helping hand.

“Well, this has been… extremely exciting,” Jack said with a mirthless laugh to break the tension, “but I’m going to clean up and eat. The gods only know what the king wants us to do later.”

Michael agreed, while Geoff decided to go straight to the midday meal. Gavin mumbled something about finding a friend, while Ray, interestingly, excused himself to the sept. He joked after a beat that if the Warrior wouldn’t heed his prayers, he might as well ask the Mother for a pretty girl to fall in love with him.

Gavin limped toward his rooms. He was sore all over, and though he’d tempted death a number of times just for a nice spectacle, he’d never come so close to true death. He could have almost sworn he saw the god of Death lurking around the corner. It was a slight relief to get back to his chamber, to feel the coolness of the stone after the heat outside. Slightly less relieving was that Alannys Storm was sitting on the edge of his bed with eyes a color he hadn’t seen since Braavos’s harbor.

Those eyes widened when she caught sight of his neck. “God, what happened to you?”

“I would be very surprised if you did not already know. You servants hear everything, don’t you?”

She dropped the act but remained looking concerned. “Every time someone shouts, you can hear it all through the Keep. The stone echoes. You know the old saying– the Red Keep’s walls have ears of their own.”

Gavin held up a looking glass. His neck was red, but hadn’t yet begun to bruise. These were injuries he wouldn’t be able to hide, and he didn’t like to think about what the king would say about them. “So,” he said, putting the glass down and turning back to look at Alannys, “what did the king pay you to sell out Ser Geoff?”

 

***

 

“There are five chests before you,” the king said. He was sat on the Iron Throne, looking as though he had no right to be there, and the Five Kings were stood before him, with, indeed, five wooden boxes, one for each of them. “In each, you will find oil, a flint, and a pickaxe. You may have noticed that the last four kings, my predecessors, rather vaingloriously left statues of themselves everywhere in the city. Destroy them. Each of you, destroy one statue in its entirety and bring me back a piece.”

The king was smiling at Gavin like a hungry cat. There was every chance he knew why his neck was red, and Geoff felt uneasy that he knew. Not wanting to look at the king anymore, he looked into his wooden box and, indeed, found a beautifully wrought pickaxe with the king’s sigil on it, as well as a small jug of oil and a flint. “But, Your Grace…” he hard Ray say. “This is… those statues are history. They’re some of the only images we have of the old kings.”

“And why should we need those? Why, I am the king now, am I not? If I am not I had best turn the crown over to the proper king, had I not?”

“I didn’t mean to suggest that–”

“I am aware of what you did and did not mean. But I am your lord and I expect to be obeyed. Unless, of course, you choose to forfeit the tourney…”

That was new. The king had never suggested that they had any options other than that of competing in the tourney. For a fleeting moment, Geoff wanted to beg out, but all too soon reality crashed in again, and he knew that even if he wasn’t killed for dissenting, his family would be. “No, Your Grace,” Ray said after a heavy moment. “Of course I want to continue.”

“Excellent.” The word was a lion’s purr. “Now, go. You will not be stopped; the gold cloaks have been informed of your task and they know to keep my people away from you.”

So they ran. They had little choice. Gavin, strategically, chose the statue of Geoff the Conqueror just around the corner from the Keep. It was an enormous thing of stone, an image of the old king sitting atop the throne that had previously been occupied by Targaryens only. The laypeople found a sort of comfort in the statue; Geoff had brought peace from the bloody reign of the dragonkings, and he was a hero of the smallfolk, who were known to rub one of his stone knees for good luck. 

Gavin poured oil over part of the statue, and swore viciously when it caught fire accidentally. “How the bloody hell did that happen?”

“Want any help there?” Gavin jumped and almost fell off the platform where the statue was sitting. Michael was standing there, sweat dampening his hair and his pickaxe thrown over his shoulder.

“It’s not really helping, is it? If you ‘help’ me destroy this, you can bring the last piece back to the king, and you’ll win the challenge.”

Michael shrugged. He looked sort of guilty, and Gavin thought he still felt bad about the events of the meat challenge. He couldn’t help but appreciate it. “The faster this thing is over, the better, don’t you think? I don’t want to do this anymore, none of us do.”

“Alright, then. You can help.”

It went alright until Gavin caught on fire.

The other challengers weren’t faring much better; Geoff kept accidentally catching himself on fire, Jack was doing alright but his work was slow, and Ray almost decapitated himself with the pickaxe.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Michael swore as Gavin batted himself out. “We can’t destroy this. Look at the underside of the king’s throne.”

Gavin looked. Under a layer of stone, the king’s throne was dragonglass, to symbolize his victory over the Targaryens. Dragonglass was nearly indestructible, and certainly wouldn’t be destroyed with some oil and a pickaxe. He groaned his frustration.

After nearly killing himself, Ray did alright. He found a small statue that was already crumbling, and it didn’t take much work to destroy it fully. He took the largest piece of stone that was left– the long-dead king’s left hand– and pocketed it, heading quietly back to the Keep. He arrived long before everyone else, held out the stone hand to the king, and waited while King Ryan sent his Hand to fetch the others back.

When they arrived, Geoff’s breeches were still flaming up every once in a while, and Michael looked regretful and annoyed. “Congratulations to Ray,” the king boomed. “This is his second victory, and may it not be his last.” His lips curled at Geoff like they shared a secret. If that was so, Ray had no desire to know what it was. All he wanted to do was go to bed, and excused himself from dinner early to do so. After the events of midday, everyone expected Gavin was going to bed when he excused himself as well, but instead, as the sun set, he grabbed a longsword from the armory and went down in the training yard.

He felt ashamed. He had won the very first task and no others, and he was embarrassing himself. He’d sword to kill the king. He had no ties to this mortal world and had no trouble festering in the deepest hell if it meant killing Ryan and ascending the throne himself. All his life he’d wanted power, the power to do anything and everything, the power to make himself remembered through all history… and the only challenge he’d managed to win was one that required him to hide like a whipped dog.

He was a sorry sight with the sword, but needed to be better. He attacked the training dummies like they were… well, he couldn’t quite decide on what they were. Sometimes they were Ryan, with a bloody crown on his golden brow. Sometimes they were his bastard brother, and sometimes Alannys Storm, with her black heart and full purse. Not that he hated her particularly; she was only doing what she had to so that she might survive, and if he’d thought about it, he might have done the same, depending on the price. Still. He didn’t care if she was the daughter of that wretched Ghiscari harpy, just that her malice was done on his coin.

“You look a bit shit,” said a soft voice from behind him. For the sake of all the gods, people have got to stop sneaking up on me, he thought. When he lowered his sword and looked behind him, he saw Kerry, the king’s Hand.

“I’ve looked better,” he said. “I suppose you were sent to spy on me? By whom?”

“King Ryan, long may he reign.”

“Long may he reign,” Gavin echoed. He cocked his head to really examine Kerry Shawcross; he’d heard all the rumors about him. He was the king’s bastard. He was the king’s half-brother. He was taken into the king’s service when the king fucked his mother. When the king loved his mother. When the king killed his mother. That his mother was a maiden from Skagos and his father was a man of the Night’s Watch who stole her from across the Bay of Seals. Gavin hardly believed any of them, but he did wonder what a seemingly polite young man like Kerry was doing in service of the king. “I don’t suppose you’ll have much to tell him. He already knows I’m a right mess with a sword.”

“Yes, I think he does. Not that this is spying, truly. Merely… observation, shall we call it?”

“You can call it what you like. I need to practice.” He turned away from Kerry, raised the sword.

“Does it bother you that your whore is spying for the king?”

He dropped the sword again and turned back. “She’s not a whore,” he said, every word dripping with disdain. “She’s not my anything. I care very little for her, and I care little and less that I’m hardly the only one paying for her silence.”

“So it wouldn’t bother you to hear that she didn’t take a single stag for the information? She came to the king, you know, not the other way around.” There was a kind of feverish brightness to Kerry’s eyes and cheeks, but other than that he looked pale and drawn. He looked ill. “She didn’t want money for the information, you see, she just asked that the king take her right there in the throne room. She said that after being with you, she needed a true man, and, well, you know our good king, he had no trouble with the request…”

Gavin closed his eyes. He remembered Alannys telling him she’d keep his secrets but not fuck him. He wasn’t sure who to believe at this point, and he didn’t truly care. The less people in his confidence, the better.

“My Lord Hand,” he heard himself say, “I’ll fuck you myself with the point of this sword if you don’t give me my peace.”

He heard the low chuckle that came from Kerry and then his departure. He hardly liked the coarse, crude language he just used, but all he wanted was his peace. Yes, he thought, as he went back to practicing with the sword. When he was king, he wouldn’t have a Hand. He’d have himself, the only person he needed.


	8. Seeing Double

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a few weeks. Please enjoy!

“What do you think it is?” Geoff said, holding up a glass vial and squinting at it. The liquid inside was faintly opaque, sprinkled with glimmering flecks of red like a ground-up ruby.

“Whatever it is, I doubt it’s anything good,” Michael said from across the table. Jack and Ray murmured their assent. Each of them, and possibly Gavin as well– although they didn’t know because he wasn’t at breakfast– had awoken with a carved wooden chest on their bedside tables, containing a full set of clothing and a vial. As far as they could tell, all the clothing was identical, even in size, which bewildered them because brawny Jack and lithe Ray were nowhere near the same build. Stranger still, the clothing was identical to the set Gavin had been wearing since the beginning, a patchwork all in green. Still, it was the vial and its mysterious containers that intrigued them now, especially given the strictly worded note that came in each chest in what seemed to be the king’s own hand– neither wear the clothes nor drink the extract, on pain. It didn’t say on pain of what– death, maybe– but none were inclined to ask.

“He wouldn’t just give us poison, would he? That’s too easy,” Jack suggested.

“Maybe he figured that one of us would break the rules and try a bit, and be punished for it,” Ray countered.

Geoff shook his head. “We wouldn’t have gotten this far on such stupidity. It must be part of the challenge, but what…”

Ray put his chin in his palm and used the other hand to stroke the clothing in his chest. “How many days has it been? Since we arrived, I mean. Since the king decided to honor us like this. I feel I’ve aged years.”

“Four,” Michael said with a kind of hushed reverence. “I can’t believe it. Four days. I saw my wife not a month ago.”

Geoff went quiet, and Michael knew what he was thinking; he’d seen his not two days ago. “I know you miss your wife, Geoff,” Ray said, touching him lightly on the wrist. “We all have someone we miss. You’ll see her soon enough.” He didn’t know that, couldn’t know that.

“Have you got a girl back home, Ray?” Jack said quickly, trying to distract Geoff.

Ray shook his head. “There was a girl, Jynessa Blackmont… She’s younger than me, though, and never liked me much, at least when we were children… But I imagine after this she’d want nothing to do with me.” He thought of Alaya. He hadn’t seen her since the meat challenge, when he dripped blood on her. He didn’t want to see her again, not now that she was soiled by these challenges, but he missed a warm body at night. “Gavin’s got himself a girl, though.”

“That’s true,” Michael said. “I asked a steward, she’s some laundry girl.”

“Pretty?” asked Ray.

Michael shrugged. “Never seen her. The steward said she’s a bit plain, really. Yellow hair, blue eyes. Bit heavy in the top deck, he said, if you catch my drift.”

Gavin appeared then, poked his head around the doorframe. “We’re wanted in the courtyard,” he said, “and bring your chests.”

The men all looked at each, shrugged, and gathered up their things before following Gavin to the courtyard. The Mad King was waiting with Kerry by his side, an eerily similar smirk on both their faces. Geoff frowned; he remembered when Kerry was young, a bubbly child with wide eyes and an insatiable curiosity about the world. He didn’t recognize this wan stranger with sunken eyes. His hands were thickly bandaged and he seemed to be favoring his left side, as if his ribs were tender. Geoff wondered how he’d gotten injured.

“Take these swords,” the king said by way of greeting, sweeping his hand toward a haphazard pile of swords on the ground, some nicer than others. The five scrambled to grab one, but they were gone when Ray made to get one. He stared at the empty ground for a moment before Jack realized he had two and handed one over. “Now, drink the contents of the vials you were left this morning.”

Gavin furrowed his brow. “Your Grace, I… didn’t get one.”

“No, Gavin, you did not. As the mixture begins to take effect, I will explain. You see, there are always those willing to push the boundaries of reality farther than strictly necessary, and in this case, a old maester, formerly of the Citadel, studied the Faceless Men of Braavos– Gavin, perhaps you are familiar– and has concluded that when done properly, anyone can look like anyone else, if only for a short period of time. Mere minutes, in this case.”

Geoff dropped his now-empty vial and felt sick. “Is that what we just drank? We’re going to become someone else?”

“Indeed. Gavin.”

“What?” Gavin said.

“Yes. The others will look just like you and sound just like you for a few minutes. The transformation should begin shortly, so I ask you to put on the clothes that were in the chest, or your clothes now will not fit you.”

The four men did as requested, horrified as they felt the changes in their bodies. Jack felt himself lighten, while Ray gained weight. Geoff felt unbalanced, and Michael scowled at his long, uncallused hands. They dressed quickly, uncomfortable seeing what was technically Gavin’s body, patchworked with bruises, in such an intimate state. They stood in a circle looking at each, Gavin more horrified than the others. “This is fucking bizarre,” Michael said, and the others had to agree. Michael clenched an unfamiliar jaw in irritation that the epithet had been stated in an elegant tongue sweetened by the accent of Braavos instead of his own voice.

“Run in circles a few times, make sure you truly don’t know who each other is, and then fight. The object of this morning’s challenge? Kill Gavin Free.”

Geoff flexed his hands out of habit to warm up the joints, but didn’t need to. He was, for the next few minutes, what all men dreamed of: an older man’s experience and training in a young man’s body. He knew the moves and his body could keep up with him. That was even more exciting than the prospect of killing Gavin.

Gavin, meanwhile, felt his heart stop for a few beats. His mouth went dry and he felt cold. He hadn’t been afraid to die but he didn’t want it to happen like this, surrounded by friends wearing his face. “How… how could I win?”

“I assume you’re the true Gavin.” The king’s narrowed eyes bore into, and Gavin felt sure that the king could see through the disguises somehow. He didn’t like that thought. “You don’t,” he said simply, and Gavin bit the inside of his lip so hard he drew blood.

The action was quick. Gavin, in defense from one of his other selves who rushed him, cut a long slice down someone’s leg, causing them to drop to the ground. Later he would find out it was Jack. He shivered at the abject horror that no one in history had to experience before; the discomfort of having, essentially, yourself try to kill you. The poets would love it. He didn’t like it very much.

Michael stalked around the group. No one beyond Jack seemed to have much interest in attacking each other, so he was able to study the various Gavins. Their bodies and voices may have been identical, as well as their clothing, but their mannerisms hadn’t changed; the Gavin gripping his sword tightly with a rigid posture was Geoff, while the Gavin with narrowed eyes and slightly bent knees, like a viper ready to strike, must have been Ray. He struck, slicing the Gavin that was Geoff across the back of the thighs, making him howl with pain and fall to his knees. Before Ray could react, Michael got him too.

It was just Michael and the real Gavin now. Michael dove forward before Gavin could even raise his sword, putting the edge to his throat and forcing him to kneel or be stabbed. “This is him, Your Grace,” Michael said, not taking his eyes off Gavin. “The real Gavin.”

“Good, good. Now kill him.”

Gavin looked up at Michael with big pleading eyes, and Michael’s conviction wavered. He wanted to win but it was no real victory, to kill an unarmed man on his knees clearly about to beg for mercy. There was no honor in this, no glory, and what kind of man would he be that he stopped Geoff from slaying Gavin only to do it himself?

“I… I can’t, Your Grace.” Michael swallowed and dropped his sword from Gavin’s neck. He could hear a growl from behind him that must have been Geoff. “There’s no honor in killing a man on his knees.”

He was sure the king would order him anyway, maybe take the sword and do it himself, but he just cocked his head as if he was studying Michael and smiled slow. “I see. Well, I cannot force you. Gavin, I suppose you will live a little longer.”

If Gavin hadn’t already been kneeling, his knees would have given out. He felt a sense of relief so strong he almost vomited. He looked up at his savior and saw that already his features were fading back into Michael’s, nose shortening, eyes turning from green to brown, hair darkening and curling. The others were changing back too, Gavin’s clothes ill-fitting now, from being much too small for Jack to much too baggy for Ray. They hastened back into their own clothing and, when the king dismissed them, hurried away.

“I don’t think he’s mad,” Michael said as soon as they were out of earshot of the king and the Hand.

“That was the most horrible thing I’ve ever experienced,” Jack said. He touched his leg where Gavin had gotten him, but the injury had disappeared when Gavin’s body did. “None but a madman could conceive of it, I think.”

“No, I have to disagree. He’s too clever, too calculating. Any madman would have killed us by now, even if it was in some convoluted and horrible way. He wants us to suffer. He’s just cruel, not mad.”

Geoff thought back to his conversation with the king, Ryan with his hypnotic crystal coronet and Geoff holding a calf’s head in a bag. He had thought the same thing, then. “Michael may well be right,” he said carefully, “but we would be wise not to speak of it.” His voice was stiff and the others nodded, thinking of what happened to Gavin. They said their farewells, Jack and Michael going to the midday meal, Ray going to practice out in the yard, and Gavin and Geoff going to their separate rooms.

“You know he’s going to find out,” Gavin said, leaning against his door. Alannys Storm sat on his bed in what appeared to be a now somewhat frequent position of hers.

“Ser Geoff? Yes, I expect so. I think that because I am fairly certain you will tell him.”

Gavin shivered and thought about the challenge. The king had ordered him killed, and Geoff would have done it. Ray and Jack might have too, and Michael certainly considered it, even if he eventually refused. As his aching shoulders and long practice sessions could attest to, he was hardly any better at swordplay than before. He made it this far on luck and the fact that it was against the rules to kill him, but the tasks were getting harder, more mentally straining. He wouldn’t make it on skill, so he could not survive without allies. Geoff, as the eldest and move experienced, was an incalculably useful one, if only that he might prove a good teacher of swordplay.

“I will do what I must,” he said after a while. “I need Geoff on my side. He is an old friend of mine and his experience may prove useful to me for a while.”

“You certainly won’t survive on skill. Everyone reports you’re absolute shit with that sword.” She nodded to the scabbard on his hip. She didn’t sound spiteful, merely as if she were repeating an accepted fact. Which, technically, was true.

“He will want you dead. He will demand your head, and he would reward me well for supplying it.”

Alannys was quiet. “Did you always intend to cast me aside so suddenly? You had great trust in me.”

“You betrayed it very elegantly.”

“Will you reproach me for complying with my deepest nature? As soon punish the cat for hunting rats than reprimand a servant for repeating rumors for coin.”

She didn’t want money for the information, you see, Gavin could hear Kerry say. “You don’t seem to care that I’ve threatened your life.”

She looked suddenly tired. “If I valued my life I would have walked out of your bedchamber that first night without even learning your name. No great life is being lost. No one will mourn Alannys Storm. I don’t care. I just don’t care.”

Gavin moved to the bed and put a hand on her shoulder in a farce of comfort. She looked up at him, and he thought that at another time, in another life, he might have loved her. But as it was, she was fated to be a bargaining chip in his quest for power. “He won’t be kind about it,” he said softly. “He’ll make it last. His family is all he has left in the world, and your information threatens their lives. He’ll torture you. It would be kinder to get it over with now.”

“A mercy,” she said with a curl of her lip, sipping the word like bitter wine. “Do as you will. But promise me this,” she said, a hand snaking out to grab Gavin’s wrist as he reached for his dagger, “you had better take that sword and send the Mad King to the seventh hell.”

Gavin drew his dagger and rested the point at Alannys’s throat, drawing a bead of blood. He hesitated. “Are you–”

“I no longer desire to live in a world with the Mad King in it,” she interrupted. Gavin didn’t even know how he was going to finish his question. His hand shook slightly and his stomach churned as he pressed the dagger a little deeper.

“Will you kiss me before you die, Alannys Storm?”

She looked up at him with eyes like a promise, like desire, like the bays of Braavos and like everything he could never have. “No,” she whispered, and the dagger sunk into her flesh.

 

***

Geoff crumpled up another sheet of parchment. He’d tried drafting letters to Griffon, even if they would never reach her, because maybe, just maybe, if he found the right words she would forgive him for sending her away, she would understand and she would love him again. Maybe she could explain it all to Millie. He couldn’t bear the thought of his little girl hating him, but then, after all the things he’d done lately he wasn’t sure he deserved their love.

There was a labored knock on the door, and he dropped the useless quill that couldn’t find any of the right words so that he could open it. If he’d been holding anything, he surely would have dropped it, because standing at his door was Gavin with dirty and bloody clothes, holding the body of a woman maybe ten years younger, with yellow hair soaked through with scarlet and a thin slice across her neck like a ruby necklace. “Gavin,” he said in a hushed tone, “what have you done?”

“I found the servant who overheard your conversation the other day as I did. She was the one paid by King Ryan to repeat your words. The debt is paid, ser.”

Geoff looked at the woman in Gavin’s arm, a child really, a girl closer in age to his own daughter than to him. If this was the price, he wasn’t sure that he was ready to pay it.


	9. One in Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a few weeks to get out. Some credit must go to my fantastic boyfriend, who wrote the first draft of this chapter because I'm lazy. WOW it's long. Hope you enjoy!

Geoff stood last vigil for the girl that night. That was the way of things. He made sure no harm came to her body and prayed to the Seven that they would reward her in the afterlife. He thought he ought to have been angry with her, because it was her meddling that risked his family’s life, but he couldn’t bring himself to hate her the way he’d hated Gavin. It’s easier to hate friend than stranger. Besides, she was already dead, and a child still; he would have been surprised if she had come of age.

Gavin came back at daybreak with a fresh wound high on his cheekbone. His neck where Geoff had choked him was an ugly, mottled yellow-green. All in all he looked more like a collection of injuries than a proper man. He seemed strong as ever, however, when he and Geoff took the body into the courtyard of the Keep and buried her. Geoff wanted to leave the spot unmarked, the better to avoid suspicion, but Gavin insisted on leaving something, so he set down a small, smooth white stone and three or four wildflowers.

“This was not well done,” Geoff told him as they went back into the Keep, toward their rooms.

“I thought it was quite a lovely burial. I’m sure she would have preferred a few more mourners, though.”

“Gavin.” He struggled to keep from shouting. “She was hardly more than a child. She could have been my daughter. I would not pay for my family’s safety with the death of a girl.”  
“She sold your family to the king. You nearly killed me for the same crime.”

“There is a difference between the informant being someone you’ve known since he became a man grown and a serving girl who owes you no loyalties. It was not well done,” he said again. He realized then that Gavin had never even told him the girl’s name.

Gavin sighed. “What’s done is done, isn’t it? It’s the future we ought to be concerned about.”

The future. If the events of the past week were any indication of the future, Geoff almost wished he wouldn’t be there to see it.

As they moved towards their rooms, Ray left his, heading towards the sept. He’d never cared much for prayers to the old gods or the new, but he found more and more these days that it was better to be safe than sorry. Besides, he liked the peace of the sept; it was the only part of the Keep that was quiet.

There was one door to the sept, and it was guarded by a gold cloak ordinarily, but this morning it was a member of the Kingsguard, all in white. Ray knew his name but couldn’t remember it. Something Burns, maybe. Either way, the man was asleep, slumped against the stone wall, so Ray passed by him silently and entered the sept.

Of course, he thought. There was only one reason why it would be a member of the king’s sworn seven guarding the sept, and that was because the person inside at prayer was worth guarding. A woman, slim and with hair like burnished copper, knelt in front of the statue of the Mother, her lips moving soundlessly. A little boy with less than three years on him gazed up at the brawny statue of the Warrior with something like adoration. A baby slept in the woman’s arms.

He knew from the elaborate embroidery on her gown and the gleam of precious stones in her tiara that she must have been Ryan’s queen, who was so rarely seen at court– and even less so since the birth of her last child– to the point where he could not even remember her name. “Your Grace,” he said quickly, dropping to his knees.

The queen jolted, eyes wide with fear, and pulled herself to her feet. “Who are you?” she asked in a soft but scared voice. She was tall, taller than Ray, but she looked drawn and weary, as if her burdens in this world were steadily grown too heavy to bear.

“Just a… a man, my lady. I came to pray to the gods as you did.” Maybe the gods could help him, since it seemed no one else could.

“You’re the Rose Bastard,” she said, and Ray winced at the name. “You’ve come to be a pawn in my husband’s games.”

“I had hoped for a more active role than pawn, but yes, I am competing for a chance for greater glory.” He stood back up, and the queen took her little boy in hand.

“You love him no more than I do,” she said after a moment, eyes narrowing. They were a color Ray had never seen before, blue-violet like the dragonkings of old.

“He’s my king.”

“He’d be your executioner given half the chance. I will not remove your tongue for speaking truths known from Dorne to the Wall. I may need you.”

Ray took a second to think. “He is my king,” he said, choosing his words carefully in case there were ears to hear him, “and I will serve him faithfully unto death.”

“His or yours?”

“Whichever comes first,” he said firmly, and there was a look of understanding in her expression. She went to his side.

“You are my only hope,” she whispered. “My husband will not stay king for long, everyone knows it. The rumor is that one of your five will be the one to kill him, and even if you don’t, someone will, and then there will be me, his queen, with two children of his own blood.” The little boy looked up at Ray. He had Ryan’s sandy hair but his mother’s eyes. “My blood is of old Valyria. Children of Targaryen and Haywood blood would be hunted all their lives.”

“Geoff the Conqueror killed the Targaryens.”

“He killed their men, not their women, so the next generation was not named Targaryen, as I am not, but their blood was true. I am no fool, I know what happened when the first King Ryan was slain. His wife was killed beside him and his children were stolen, and no one ever learned what became of them.” She tipped up her chin in a defiant gesture that would have meant more had she not been trembling. “I will not let my children be harmed. They’re sweet, my boy here is nothing like his father. Please, I have seen no one but my husband and guards for weeks, and I do not know when I shall ever have the chance to speak to anyone but them again. Will you help me?”

What a morning, Ray thought. He’d only meant to pray to his gods and instead he was plotting to steal a queen away from her king. “Yes, my lady, I will,” he promised. “I will tell no one but one other man, a friend of mine. He’s not the talkative sort, he’ll keep his mouth shut, and he will help you. Will you be here again tomorrow morning?”

“I will,” she swore, her face light with relief. “I hope I was not wrong to put my trust in you.”

Ray hoped she wasn’t either. Nor, hopefully, would he be wrong to put the life of the queen and her children in the hands of Jack. He and the lady parted ways, and only after she’d swept from the room did he consider that maybe this was a trap. It would be no great act of observation to note that he went to the sept every morning, and it would be quite the accident to simply run into the queen of the Seven Kingdoms. He prayed to the Crone for wisdom and the Father for justice. Maybe this time they’d listen.

As had become their routine, the five men met up at breakfast. While Michael shared a bawdy joke with Geoff, Ray murmured about his meeting with the queen to Jack, who listened intently and agreed to help, as Ray expected he would. Jack had a soft heart. They made plans to meet after the day’s challenge and decide what to do then.

The king appeared before Ray had worked up the energy to force down even a black sausage. “You will follow me,” he said, and so they did, Michael taking a few greasy strips of bacon with him as he went. Instead of heading towards the courtyard, as had been the case in most of the challenges, they were led back towards their bedchambers.

“You know, I wanted to be a wizard when I was a boy,” Ray said in a low voice to Gavin. “If I were a wizard I wouldn’t have to do all this.”

“You wouldn’t have to do this if you were an old woman either, Ray, but I doubt you’d like that half as much,” said Michael, who had eavesdropped, a little too loudly. 

Still, the king did not seem to hear them, and stopped outside Gavin’s bedchamber, dropping to his knees and pulling a wide, flat stone out of the floor. To everyone’s surprise, there was a hole underneath it, a rope ladder leading to, probably, some unknown horror. The king went down first, and after a moment’s hesitation, Geoff followed. The others clambered down in their own time.

Geoff sucked in a breath when he reached the bottom. The passage opened up into a room that looked as if it had been carved from the bowels of the earth, rough and thick and sinister. It was lit by small, flickering green torches. Wildfire, he realized in horror. Wildfire was dangerous, too dangerous by far to be mere torches. The antechamber, where they all stood, was walled off from the larger part of the room. A heavy-looking iron door was the only way in.

“Have any of you ever played roulette?” the king asked. The Hand stood behind him, strapping a blue breastplate onto him. At their blank stares, the king sighed, as if bored with how little they knew. “It’s a game the Dothraki play. We get the name from their word for ‘fear’, in fact. The way they play is by putting six snakes in a bag, five harmless garter snakes and one viper. You put your hand in the bag and pull out a snake. If you pull out a garter snake, you live, while if you grab an angry viper, well…” He smiled. “I don’t play with snakes. I play with arrows, and now, I’ll play with you. I require a volunteer.”

This was the closest thing to a chance to opt out of this twisted game that any of them had had since they’d arrived in King’s Landing. If this game was going to be dangerous– and from the vague description, it sounded the most dangerous yet– then by refusing to go first, the men could at least draw out their final moments a bit.

None of that mattered much to Geoff, however. His singular concern at this point was the end of the challenge, the end of the game. Not winning it; he’d already decided, after all, that it was not in his best interest. The sooner this was done, the sooner he could reunite with Griffon and Millie. “I’ll go first,” he told the king. Ryan’s smirk was jarring next to the suppressed panic on the faces of Geoff’s teammates. Geoff flicked his eyes onto Michael, only to have the man drop his and look down. That was the only time anyone would meet his eyes this challenge.

“Step inside,” the king said, “and we’ll start.” Ryan, Geoff decided, had a very hard face to trust. He was handsome, almost stunningly so, and his constant half-smile and booming, fluid voice were charming, practically comforting. There was a very different look in his eyes, though. They were the eyes of a man who would as soon plunge a knife in your chest as shake your hand. He had the face of a Great King, to be sure, but not for any good reasons.

The king ushered Geoff into the main room. It was square, plain, bare, with a brazier in a dark cutout in the far left corner. “Stand on this spot,” he said, pointing to a splotch of red in the middle of the room, “and we can begin. When you are ready, raised your right hand, and one of two things will happen: the brazier will light, or you will be shot.” Geoff didn’t meet his eyes. He couldn’t bear to. He stared straight ahead and stood where he was supposed to. The king walked out and closed the door behind him, and then Geoff was alone.

It wasn’t until now that he realized how foolish they’d been since day one. It was one thing to participate in a jousting tournament, or to champion in a trial by combat. You risk your life, but only through failure. This… this was death without honor. This was risk with no reward, this was where your life was in the gods’ hands. Every step could be a trap and every word could be treason, and yet here they all were, seven completed challenges later, alive.

It was all too easy. It wasn’t just that Ryan hadn’t killed them immediately– that would only raise suspicion. But for all of them to live so long? That was deliberate, to be sure. They weren’t permitted death yet. So why did Ryan want them to live?

There was the scrape of metal on stone, and then the king was there again, smiling and telling Geoff he was free to go. Geoff opened his mouth to ask why, then noticed the brazier burning in the corner. Sometime when he was thinking, he’d put his hand up. What a strange sort of bravery that was.

“Who will follow Geoff?” the king asked. No one looked at him.

“Alright, then,” Ray said, in a voice that to his own ears sounded too much like a peeping bird for comfort. “What’s the worst that could happen?” He hadn’t failed to notice that the Hand had his Valyrian steel dagger hanging from his belt, perhaps to kill them if they failed to volunteer. Kerry looked worse than they did, though, he noticed, his face looking puffy and raw and one eye bandaged. He had no reason to love Kerry, but none to hate him either, and he didn’t like to think of him being beaten, as it seemed.

He stepped into the room, closed his eyes, raised his hand, and after he wasn’t shot, looked up to see the little fire burning. He could have cried with relief. Gavin, who volunteered with an almost frightening eagerness, fared much the same.

Jack went in next. His four companions, outside, looked at each other. Michael ground his teeth impatiently. “This is getting ridiculous. What the hell’s supposed to happen in there?” Gavin stood patiently, watching with the curiosity of a child. Ray paced, his throat tight, until the door swung open. This time, instead of the light burning in the corner, there was a low grunt of pain. An arrow had been fired from a slit in the wall and grazed Jack’s calf.

“Kerry, if you’ll help Jack upstairs,” the king said in an almost bored voice. He did not even look at Jack. He had a knack for speaking to people without directly addressing them. “We can continue now.”

Geoff realized, finally, the true horror of this challenge. It was hard enough to know that death, or injury, could come at any minute, but the king made them give the signal. He had to raise his hand. The flame would light or the arrow would fire on his command. He was holding a knife to his own throat. He remembered what he’d thought before, holding the calf’s head, and he remembered Michael echoing those thoughts just last night. The Mad King wasn’t mad at all. Geoff couldn’t decide if that made him more dangerous or less.

“Jack’s injury was minor,” the king said in response to Michael’s challenging look. “I’ve employed an expert marksman for this challenge– I have no intention of harming any of you today. I will ask my marksman to aim higher.”

Ray exhaled and looked back at Geoff and was comforted because he could tell that he didn’t believe the king either. Perhaps they were wrong not to, but as far as they were concerned, whether he wanted to kill them or not, they were still being shot at with arrows.

Michael went into the room, visibly shaken, and the king closed the door behind him. Geoff noticed that he had not, in fact, asked his marksman to aim higher. Michael lifted his hand, the light flickered to life, and Michael left. “Thus ends round one,” Ryan said. “I’ll admit, more of you made it than I expected.” He sounded annoyed. “Geoff, if you’ll step inside.”

Again Geoff did not look at him. He stared forward and only noticed he’d been shot when he heard blood patter to the floor. He didn’t even feel it. Ray took his place. “If you’d like to go upstairs,” the king suggested to Geoff, but he shook his head.

“I am going to stay here.” Ryan shrugged, as if he didn’t care, but his jaw was tight.

“I’ll go twice in a row if you’d like,” Ray joked, with a king of swagger in his step that only the very foolish and very frightened used. His hasty prayers were answered and the light went on.

Gavin was more reserved than Ray but looked far more comfortable. To the end, he maintained his confidence, faltering only a moment when the arrow grazed his cheek like a lover’s finger. He strode out of the room and up the ladder when the time came, eyes blazing but tongue silent.

“And then there were two,” the king said. Michael walked in, and when the brazier lit up, he walked right back out. “I think this round will determine the winner. Ray, your turn.”

He didn’t hesitate. He was afraid, desperately so, but what would happen would happen, and it looked like he’d just get a scratch, judging by the others. He held up his hand, and the gods must have liked him as well as the crowds at all the tourneys because he saw fire instead of blood.

Michael’s earlier bravado was falling away like stars at sunrise. This was probably it for him, and he waited for the battle-fever to come on him, but it stubbornly refused to. In any true fight he would have a weapon, he would have armor, and the weight of the steel and the sweat in his eyes would disappear, and time would move slower and he could cut through opponents like so much soft cheese. How do you fight fate? How do you stop your own death when it comes at your own signal? He didn’t even have the advantage of hope. He was facing the arrow. He was Michael of House Jones, lord of Strongsong, husband, son, brother, the best warrior in the Vale. And he was afraid.

He held up a shaking hand and heard the sound of a bowstring being pulled, except he didn’t hear one, he heard at least three, and as he opened his mouth to say something, the arrows loosed. One shredded the linen shirt he wore as if it were paper to stick an inch into his side. One whizzed by his ear, only just missing his eye. The last punctured his right hand, and he allowed himself to cry out.

Ray ran in and pulled him out of the room, and Michael, somewhere in the back of his mind, heard the king congratulating Ray for his third victory. Ray tended to Michael as best he could, pulling the arrows out of his wounds and tearing off a piece of his own shirt to try and staunch the flow of blood.

It wasn’t until then that Michael got a good look at his injured hand. The arrow had left a ragged hole through his palm, slick with blood. Behind the thin slices of muscle and sinew he could see shattered bone. He vomited, dropped to his knees, and passed out.

***

He floated in and out of consciousness. He remembered being set down in a soft bed, and he remembered a maester pouring something on his hand that burned so much he passed out again.   
When he awoke next time, his hand was thickly bandaged, and he was alone.

He wasn’t sure whether or not he was drinking milk of the poppy, or if someone was giving it to him, but he knew that either way he slept a lot. Every so often he would be vaguely aware of visitors, but his head was so clouded with pain and sleep that he couldn’t acknowledge them.

“The maester said the worst of it should be over,” he heard Ray say once.

“Any idea when he’ll wake up?” That was Geoff.

“No, none. He should sleep through as much of the pain as he can, and then…”

“D’you think his hand will ever be the same?”

“No one knows…”

Another time, it was laundry maids come to change the bed linens around his half-sleeping body. “Have you heard about Alannys?” one asked the other.

“Yes, lucky thing. What I wouldn’t give to have someone just come and take me away from this place…”

“No, no, she’s not married, she was murdered. No one knows who did it.”

“I don’t believe that. You’ve been gossiping with the stable hands again, they don’t know anything.”

“You don’t know anything.” They left, and it was quiet once more.

The dreams were a little harder. He’d always heard that milk of the poppy gave you deep and dreamless sleep, but he felt about ready to punch every maester who said that, because it couldn’t be farther from the truth. He saw Ray, gaunt and tired, with the ghost of a crown on his head. He saw Gavin with bruises blossoming on his skin before his eyes like hideous purple flowers. He saw a little boy with his brown eyes telling him he’d never forgive him, and he couldn’t be sure if he was seeing himself as a child or his own son.

The worst was when he dreamed of the king, the things Ryan must have had to do to become king until his hands were so bloody it was a wonder he didn’t stain everything he touched. He saw Ryan at the foot of his bed once, in no clothing but the kilt that denoted him as having once been from the North. His crown shimmered in the firelight, as did the thin sheen of sweat over his muscles. Michael hadn’t expected the king to be so strong. He was pulling a woman toward him, kissing her neck, a woman with a slender figure and rich red hair, a woman he called Lindsay in a voice like honey over steel, a woman who was kissing him back…

He woke up for good after that. He wasn’t alone, either, a woman was pulling a silk gown over her head and belting it with a filigreed gold belt, pretty and light. “Who are… you?” he managed with a tongue that felt too thick for his mouth. She jumped.

“Sorry, m’lord, I was just leaving.” She looked like the woman in his dream that might not have been a dream, except that she was a little plumper, and her hair wasn’t so much auburn as orange.

“Your name?”

“Lynesse, m’lord. His Grace the king will be glad to know you’re awake.” She hurried out of the room, cheeks red. Lynesse, not Lindsay. That was one load off his mind. He shouted out for anyone, a maester, Geoff, someone. It was Ray who came running.

“Oh, thank the gods you’re awake,” Ray said.

“How long?”

“Not quite a day. It’s early in the morning.”

“The king, he… Three arrows, not one…” Speaking was a struggle. “Tried to kill…”

“We know. Jack thinks it’s because you didn’t kill Gavin before.”

“I’ll kill… him.” The king, not Gavin. He figured Ray would understand. “If it kills me.”

“Do you think that’s likely?”

Michael looked down at his hand, tightly bound, with a patch of red where the blood had soaked through. “Does it matter?”


	10. Blind Date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is even longer than the last one! Anyway, please enjoy!

Jack had always loved children. He didn’t think he’d ever have any– he was two-and-thirty and he still hadn’t even taken a wife– but he loved them all the same. So when Ray came to him and explained what had happened in the sept before they broke their fast, it wasn’t that he thought himself a knight like in the songs, rescuing a beautiful woman from her captor. No, he thought about her little children, the way Ray had described them, a boy of only a few years and a girl, still a babe in arms. If they were lucky they would have all of their mother’s beauty and their father’s charm, but not his cruelty.

It was almost too easy to steal them away. He and Ray went to the sept just before dawn, as was Ray’s custom now (Jack had never been to the sept; he kept the old gods of the North), where a member of the Kingsguard slept outside the door and the queen waited within. She was as pretty as Ray had described, brown-haired and slim, with elegant features. She had dressed simply, in a wool gown the color of spring grass and a thick dark cloak over her shoulders. “You came,” she breathed, eyes soft with relief and shining like amethyst.

“Of course, Your Grace,” Ray said. “This is the man I spoke of to you, Jack of House Pattillo.”

“Your Grace.” Jack bowed. “We had best be going, the castle wakes early.”

“Yes, of course.” Her little boy tugged at her skirts and asked to be picked up. “Not now, child, I’ve got your sister in my arms.”

“My lady, if you think it would be faster with your boy in arms, I can carry the babe.” The words slipped from Jack’s mouth before he’d even realized he’d thought them. Still, the queen agreed and handed off the babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, to Jack so that she could carry her son. The babe opened her eyes to look up at Jack with eyes of dark blue that he supposed would lighten to violet when she grew older. She was so tiny in his arms, with a little fluff of sandy hair and a tiny rosebud mouth. Ray said something about getting on, and then they were off, Jack hoping against hope that the babe wouldn’t start crying; the Red Keep echoed, and anyone would come running at the sound of a child’s tears.

Thankfully, they made it to Jack’s quarters unmolested, and the queen let the hood of her cloak fall back. She sat the child on the edge of Jack’s bed and took her daughter back out of Jack’s arms, and he gave her back somewhat hesitantly. In this miserable hellpit, there was something exceedingly refreshing about the reminder that new life was still being created. “We have found you passage on a ship,” Ray began, but the queen shook her head.

“I thank you very much for getting me away from my guards, but there is something I must ask of you first. Is it your intention to kill the king?”

Hardly anyone would dare to speak so openly in the Keep, and it took a special sort of bravery to come from Ryan’s queen. Jack thought it best to be honest. “My lady, my friends and I did not come to King’s Landing with the intention of kingslaying, but we admit that there is one in our party who… may not share that view. He has sworn that whatever it should take, he will kill the king.”

“I feel it should be noted that he has no chance,” Ray added with a sideways look at Jack. They didn’t dare mention Gavin by name. “He is bold, no one will deny that, but… He’s not good enough. He isn’t clever enough to stay even one step ahead of His Grace, he isn’t good enough with a sword, he has so far proven himself unskilled in everything but hiding. Your lord husband is safe." 

The queen’s mouth pulled together like purse strings. “That will not do. I was told you would take care of this.”

The men exchanged puzzled glances. “By who, my lady?” Ray asked.

“It’s rumor, it’s all over the city. Very well. Ser, if I may speak to you alone?” She indicated Ray, so Jack took his leave and promised to wait outside. When he was gone the queen spoke again. “If none of you will do it, I will. I thank you for your assistance, but the only thing I require now is the use of these quarters until I have my chance. It will not be long.” Her eyes looked different now, less amethyst and more Valyrian steel.

“If you change your mind, the Ladybird is leaving for Braavos on the morrow. Please stay safe, my lady. For your children’s sake, if not your own.” He looked at the woman’s soft white hands cradling the babe in her arms and imagined them clutching a dagger instead. It was not easy. “I will not leave you to your own schemes, though. I will aid you as best I can.” With that, he bowed to the lady and the little prince, who smiled happily, and left the chambers to meet up with Jack. Very quickly he explained that the queen would not be leaving for Braavos, though he did not say why.

“Ray, what were you thinking? She’s a woman all on her own, a queen, with two little children.”

“She is my queen, and I am here to serve.”

Jack folded his arms across his broad chest. He stood a fair bit taller than Ray and was certainly bulkier, and he hoped with his beard and thick arms he looked intimidating. “I mislike this. In the North we know to protect our women and children.”

“And in Dorne we know that women are as capable and strong as men, and that their wishes should be respected just as well,” Ray snapped, hands fidgeting around his belt. If Jack tried to draw attention to his size when he hoped to be threatening, Ray drew attention to his hands, callused and thin, quick and able. For all his size Ray could kill Jack in a moment. “If anything at all should go wrong, I will be there.”

“So you don’t mean to leave her alone?”

“I was taught that you don’t leave a brother alone to finish a fight he cannot win. I see no difference for a sister.” That was all the said of the matter before they went to the hall to break their fast. The less said of sensitive matters, the better.

Ray was pleased to see Michael had made it down to get something to eat. “Michael! How’s the hand?”

“Absolute shit, if we’re being honest here. Do you know where I woke up? The king’s bedchamber. I woke up in the king’s bed while the king fucked a whore on the floor, and if I can’t get piss-drunk within the next hour to forget all that, then I see no point to living anymore.” He took a long drag on sweet Arbor gold and held out the flagon to the other two men. When they waved it away, he shrugged and put it down.

To Michael’s surprise, Gavin took a deep interest in Michael’s health when he and Geoff came in. Though Michael had developed a fond affection for the Braavosi man when he wasn’t so angry, Gavin had always seemed too concerned about other matters to bother with Michael. Before all this, before the challenges began, Gavin was often light-hearted and quick to laugh, with his green eyes sparkling with mischief and a naiveté to him that Michael found annoying until Gavin stopped acting like that. Gavin of late had been brooding and melancholy, and it made Michael realize how much he had actually liked his laughter. He even apologized for it being because of him that Michael got injured.

“Geoff, I notice you’re not so angry at Gavin anymore,” Michael said when he was tired of all the focus being on him. Geoff and Gavin exchanged a look that was meaningful but incomprehensible.

“We’re all in this together, aren’t we?” Geoff remarked, voice light. “I think the king might begrudge me the pleasure if I killed him.”

Indeed, the king did seem to have an almost murderous glee to his eyes when he brought the five back down to the underground room where they had been before. Michael shook a little to be back down there, and his hand throbbed with pain that the wine hadn’t completely clouded. He was tipsy, not nearly drunk enough, but to hide his trembling he clenched his fists out of habit until the pain in his right hand nearly made him pass out again.

“Good day to you all,” the king said, smooth as silk. “Michael, I trust that you will forgive me for your accident yestermorn?”

Did he have a choice? He dare not risk the king’s wrath, now that he had a plan. At least, he and Ray did. When he had awoken this morning, before Ray left for the sept, they had discussed it; Ray, as the most obvious choice, must be their champion, and when they inevitably held a feast for his victory Gavin could do something foolish and attempt to kill the king. Then they could all go home. “I see nothing that needs forgiving, Your Grace,” he said finally, and though the king’s smile could melt a maiden’s heart his eyes could cut glass.

“Very well. This task, possibly your last, is simple. You will fight, two at a time. The only stipulation is that you be blindfolded.” Kerry, at his side, held up silk scarves, inky black. Ray squinted at Kerry; did he look even worse than yesterday? His one exposed eye was bloodshot, his whole body seemed puffy and swollen, and he was distinctly favoring his left hand, even though both were bandaged thickly. “I will provide swords. Who will go first?”

“I will,” Ray and Gavin said at nearly the same time. Gavin looked eager for a fight. Ray just wanted to get it over with. The king turned around and pulled two scabbards from where they hung on the wall and tossed one each to the two men. Ray drew his blade, expecting a tourney sword with blunted edges and nearly falling over with shock when he saw the sword was smoky grey and threaded through with turquoise. “Your Grace, this is… This is Valyrian steel. We can’t see each other, we could easily kill someone!”

“Then you had best win, hadn’t you?” the king said, and there was no more arguing. Gavin and Ray entered the room through the heavy iron door. “Whoever draws first blood is the winner,” he said while Kerry, with fumbling hands, blindfolded the men. “Fight!”

It was disorienting, and there was a lot of stepping around trying to get their bearings. Ray didn’t want to start swinging for fear he’d take Gavin’s head off, but clearly Gavin didn’t have that reservation; he heard the clang of the sword as it brushed the stone walls. Still he wandered, trying not to breathe too loudly for fear that Gavin would hear him and attack. Silent as a shadow, he crept along until Gavin sounded near enough. Then it was simple; a quick slice in the general estimation of Gavin’s arm, a yelp of pain, and it was over.

When they passed the blindfolds and swords on to Jack and Geoff, Ray could see that he’d gotten Gavin on the forearm, deeper than he intended; his green sleeve was already soaked red.

This fight went much the same as the first, though with more frenzied hacking. Jack was strong and Geoff was disciplined, but strength won out and Geoff lost. “Michael, because there are only five of you, you will fight Kerry,” Ryan said, and Michael swallowed deep. He’d never seen Kerry fight, but he had to be good if he was the Mad King’s Hand. Or was he poor, and that was why he was so beat up? Could Michael beat him even with his sword hand damaged? He didn’t have much of a chance to find out. The two were pushed into the room and it was barely half a minute before Kerry was leaving the room clutching his bloodied shoulder.

It was such a small victory that Michael felt almost bad about it. Yes, he was injured, but Kerry hadn’t even put up a fight that he could tell. Valyrian steel has a sharp kiss and Kerry was injured enough. “Kerry, you may go. You know what you must do.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” Even his voice sounded raw, pitted, as if he’d swallowed sandpaper and naught else for a week. He left, and then there were three. 

“Jack, Michael, Ray, you will all fight together. I admit I didn’t anticipate this and I must needs find another sword. If you will all wait here…” He left up the ladder, and Michael turned to the other four. He explained what he and Ray had spoken of before and while he didn’t tell Jack to lose, exactly, he did imply that it would be for the best. Jack, for his part, didn’t protest. He didn’t expect to win anyway.

The king returned, the three were blindfolded, and then it began. As planned, Michael went down first, and quickly; he didn’t have the will or the energy to keep defense up long enough to keep from getting killed. He wound his blindfold clumsily around his arm and watched the other two fight.

They drew it out, gave the king a good show. There was something about the king’s expression while he fought that Michael almost want to look away in shame; he looked as though he were watching a pair of lovers, or a beautiful maid undressing. It wasn’t necessarily arousal, but a kind of hunger, an intertwining of gluttony and lust. Michael didn’t like the look of it one bit.

In the end, as they all knew he would, Ray won. He nicked Jack just below the knee and dropped his sword, clearly uncomfortable with the weight of it in his hands. Geoff cheered, and then slowly the others did as well, because gods above, it was over and they were free and done, their hellish week was over and maybe Geoff could sleep through a night and maybe Ray would eat a real meal again and maybe Gavin could rest long enough to let his bruises fade. Geoff, more than any of the others, felt as though a weight had been lifted off his shoulders; his stomach unknotted, his heart came down from his throat, and he felt a smile coming to his face, because he could go home, home to his beautiful wife and daughter, home, home…

They spent the afternoon relaxing before the, as predicted, feast Ryan had ordered them to prepare for in the evening. All the court would be in attendance, he said, and they need not look so haggard and forlorn or rumors of mistreatment would abound. He laughed at that, low in his belly, and the others had no choice but to join as if the idea of the king mistreating them was ludicrous. Ray spent over an hour teaching Jack how to play cyvasse, a Dornish game, while Michael went to the maester for some milk of the poppy and Gavin sent to the kitchens for some cheese and bread.

Geoff soaked in a hot bath for well over an hour until the water was cold and grimy, and then dressed in the best set of clothing he’d brought with him. He wore black breeches and new black boots, a deep green leather jerkin over a black linen shirt, and a light wool cloak over his shoulders.

When it was time for the feast, he met with his four companions in the corridor. Ray looked splendid in a black velvet mantle with the red rose of his own sigil picked out in garnet beads on it, while Michael had gotten the bandages changed on his hand and wore airy sandsilk and twin turquoise brooches. Jack was bright in red and green, while Gavin was all green, emerald and jade and pine.

The feast was grand indeed. All five of the Kings were seated at the high dais, and Ray was even given the seat of high honor at the king’s right side. He tried to protest, saying by rights the seat belonged to the queen or the Hand, but Ryan insisted, because the queen was ill and the Hand was indisposed. Eventually Ray could no longer refuse, and so he sat. That was the only rough patch of the evening, though; he drank Dornish wine and took a little bit of every dish that was offered him, and every bit was the best he’d ever tasted.

Ryan had spared no expense; the hall was packed, with hundreds of King’s Landing’s finest at every bench in silk and fur and velvet. The wine was rich, the food was richer, and the serving girls were each more beautiful than the last. Once Alaya had come up to fill Ray’s wine cup, but she hadn’t met his eyes. That was probably best. She was the loveliest thing in the hall, to be sure, and hardly any of the men could keep their eyes off her, but she deserved someone better than Ray.

Gavin was seated beside Ray and was drunk in half the time, mumbled into his cups about some song or another. “I loved a maid as red as autumn, with sunset in her hair,” he sang once, and then scowled at his empty wine cup. “Blood, not sunset,” he said, and then Ray didn’t want to listen anymore.

When the desserts had been passed around and eaten, Ryan stood up. He’d drank as much as Gavin had, by Ray’s estimation, but he didn’t look it. “Friends,” he called, and the hall went silent. “We all must commend our champion here for his valor, skill, and persistence. He succeeded where so many would fail, and I have every faith in him! And that is why I tell you now: what is it that bold young men crave above all else? Yes, you know it to be true. Glory. All men want glory, do they not?”

Ray felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He started to regret all the rich food he’d eaten.

“And that is why,” the king boomed, “I have but one final challenge for the five men you see seated here beside me. Though the nature of the challenge must be kept a secret, as it would be unfair should they try to prepare beforehand, in three days they will all compete for greater glories. Winner takes all!”

The crowds went wild, shouting and cheering, but all Ray could do was pray.


	11. Final Task

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I KNOW I just updated, but, well, school starts up again for me soon and I wanted this done before then. Think of this as a reward for all the times where I went three or four weeks without updating, because I'm a lazy piece of shit. Okay. There will be an epilogue after this (a short one!) and I'll probably put that up tomorrow or so (I like to wait until I have at least 100 hits on a chapter before posting the next one). This chapter was a blast to write and I hope it's good to read too. Enjoy, and comments would be MUCH appreciated!

“A sausage. A heel of bread, a chicken leg, half an orange, something. You can’t eat nothing.” Gavin held each of the aforementioned items out to Ray, one at a time. In turn, Ray refused them. “You didn’t break your fast yesterday either.”

“Nor the day before, nor the day before that, or the day before that,” Jack said thoughtfully. He knew Ray was miserable– they all were– but for him at least, food could be a comfort. For all that Ryan was trying so hard to break them, he hadn’t ever starved them, and oranges were a rare delicacy even in high summer. Thinking about it, Jack couldn’t remember seeing Ray eat anything since the feast four days ago.

“I’m fine,” Ray insisted. He didn’t look fine, though, not to Jack’s eyes. He had always been lighter-skinned for someone even half-Dornish, but he seemed even paler now, and his cheekbones stuck out further than they had a week ago. “I’ve eaten a bit, I’d have starved to death otherwise.”

“You’re going to need all the strength you can get for this afternoon,” Michael chimed in, voice muffled around a mouthful of brown bread. He’d been in high spirits, or perhaps he was simply faking them, ever since the last challenge. It probably, Jack suspected, had something to do with the amount of wine he’d been drinking. Milk of the poppy made him too tired, or so he claimed, so he drank to dull the pain in his hand. If nothing else they were all thankful that the wound hadn’t festered.

Ray threw up his own hands. “Yes, thanks, reminding me of that absolutely makes me want to eat. I feel sick every time I think about whatever unnamable horror could be waiting for us down there.” He knew they were right, though. Ever since the first challenge he hadn’t been eating as well as he should. He was so nervous, his stomach knotted so tightly it was a wonder he could keep anything down. 

He’d always been a friendly person, always liked to joke and laugh, but lately he’d been afraid to get to close to any of them. What if they died at the king’s hand? What if he died, he wouldn’t want them to mourn. Every time he opened his mouth to jest, he thought about his last meeting with Alaya, dripping blood on her shoulder when they coupled, and then he always closed it again. He felt like he spread blood everywhere he touched. These men, his friends, deserved better than that.

Geoff sat on the bench beside Ray and clapped him on the back, but said nothing. As Ray hadn’t been eating well, he himself hadn’t been sleeping, instead staying up with a tourney sword (Ryan had never returned the weapons he’d taken from them in the first challenge, and he was realizing sadly that he probably never would) and practicing his drills, over and over again. When his arms were too sore to lift the thing and he was near to dead on his feet, he sat at his table and wrote letters to Griffon and Millie, dozens on dozens of letters that he would never send, pouring out his love and apologies and even farewells, should things go wrong.

So he knew how it felt to feel as if nothing mattered because you were already dead, and he knew how it felt to concentrate so singularly on a fear that nothing else can even come close to mattering. Ray, obviously, feared the king’s wrath, his cruelty, while Geoff still feared for his wife and little girl. He knew Caleb would have picked his best gold cloaks for the protection, but if anything had happened… well, it’s not as if he would know. Ryan wouldn’t tell him because then Geoff would have nothing to lose. Even when he was so tired he thought he might collapse, the thought of his wife tossed in some unmarked grave on the side of the Kingsroad.

Gavin didn’t know any such fear. In fact, his mood had only improved since the feast, because this was his chance, it was the will of the gods, it had to be, because he’d only won one of the nine challenges and yet he had an equal chance with any of the others to win this thing once and for all, and then he’d kill the king and take the throne himself (how he’d kill the king he still hadn’t managed to figure out yet, but to his own mind the dreams were just as important).

“You know what’s fuckin’ unfair,” Michael said to break the silence. “Think about it. I’ve been looking at all those books again, the ones we read when we first got to this stinking shithole of a city. The king before Ryan was called the Cruel, but he wasn’t, was he? He was just, and he didn’t forgive all his enemies, but that’s no marker of cruelty. He was only seen as cruel because he had the temerity to not be just like his father. But that’s not going to matter, is it? In a hundred years he’ll still be the Cruel and Ryan will still be the Mad King.”

“What’s wrong with him being called the Mad King?” Jack asked.

“Because he isn’t! He’s not mad, he’s the cruel one, and in a hundred years, old maesters who haven’t even been born yet will click their tongues at the books and say that it was such a shame, but it wasn’t his fault, it was the madness talking.” He scowled and his eyes were hard as amber. “They won’t tell us right, either, if the books mention us at all. If we lose we’re traitors and if we win we’re heroes.”

Geoff took one of the oranges Gavin was offering and scratched at the peel. “I wouldn’t mind being put down as a hero. I want the singers still singing of my brave sacrifice in hundreds of years.”

“Well, alright. That’s you. I’m not a traitor and I’m not a hero. I’m Michael of House Jones and for fuck’s sake I want to be at home with my wife and not the subject of any songs.” He put the wine cup down and stood up. “Today is a good day to die, sers.”

The king met them outside the hall to bring them to the final challenge. He led them outside to the wooded courtyard where they had their very first challenge, but this time there was a ragged hole dug up to their left, and they could see a hastily-constructed wooden staircase leading down into darkness. “Your final task,” Ryan said, and there was a kind of wistfulness to his voice that threw them off guard. Normally he sounded like he was announcing to a crowded room, but this was more… intimate. Needless to say they didn’t like it. “Go down. You’ll figure it out soon enough. Kill the beast. Note that everything down there has been instructed to kill on sight, so you will need as much help as you can get. I have left chests of supplies if you can find them. Go. The winner will bring me the beast’s head.”

Jack and Michael each felt a deep sense of unease when they realized what was off about this challenge; Michael noted that Ryan had said everything and not everyone, while Jack thought it odd that Ryan was alone. “Your Grace,” he said hesitantly, “where… where is the Hand today?”

Ryan’s grin was horrifying in its glee. “Oh, don’t you worry, my lord. You’ll see him soon enough.” That was all they had before they went down into the black.

Jack went first, driven by a kind of dead-to-fear curiosity. It wasn’t that he was being brave, really; he was just sort of jaded, because after all the hell he’d seen, what could be worse? What could Ryan throw at them that they hadn’t seen before? If it was worse than all of them magically looking like Gavin or animals falling from the ceiling to burst like melons on the floor, well, that would be something.

It was something indeed, the something that Ryan had promised would try to kill him. It may have been a someone once, as it was roughly the dimensions of a brawny man, but beyond that… its flesh was rotted and falling off in chunks, exposing the yellowed bone beneath. The blood that dripped slowly from its disintegrating body was black. It had a bow, oh gods, Jack didn’t have a single weapon but for his hands, and it was drawing back the bow and the motion sloughed the skin from its fingers but it didn’t seem to notice–

Notch, aim, fire. The arrow grazed Jack’s shoulder– it would seem death doesn’t improve a man’s bowmanship– and he ran quickly back up the stairs, breathing heavy, tiny whimpering noises escaping involuntarily from his mouth, but he didn’t care, he didn’t care, he just had to get away from that monstrous dead thing…

The quickly-regaled tale didn’t seem to faze Michael, or possibly he was emboldened by the drink, because he pushed past Jack with his good hand clenched into a fist and took the stairs two at a time. He called back when he reached the bottom that it was safe; the thing had gone. The others tentatively followed him down, even Jack, who was still shaking. He wasn’t going to win either way, but he’d much rather not-win by fighting instead of by hiding.

When they got downstairs and Jack got a proper look, even he felt small. The room was enormous, possibly endless, cut from the same stone as the roulette room, the stone that Aegon’s High Hill seemed to be made of, underneath the earth. It was deep grey and flecked with dragonglass (Jack remembered vaguely that the maesters called it obsidian) and warm to the touch. Spires rose from the floor to create a sort of maze, and they couldn’t be sure if the room had grown that way or Ryan had ordered it so.

They started to wander away from each other, but soon regretted that decision; it was too dark to see properly without torches, and something was there in the darkness waiting. They could hear labored breathing. Michael screamed, a fearful sound that chilled Geoff to the bone; Michael, for all his faults, was brave bordering on foolishly bold, and he’d never even heard him make a sound in pain. To hear that sound of pure terror was… horrible. It was almost as bad when Gavin echoed it only moments later. Oh, what was that? Was that someone else? Was that his own deep breaths? Was it the beast that Ryan mentioned?

He saw it then. It was Kerry, except that it wasn’t really. It was more like something that used to be Kerry. There, one side of his face was him, round-cheeked and blue-eyed, but the other side was all wrong, with skin like leather and a huge brown eye like a cow’s. In fact, there was a bull’s horn spiraling out of his head above the cow eye. He seemed taller and bulkier than he had been, with hands twisted into claws, thick and ungainly. He had been shoved into motley bits of armor that didn’t fit right and clutched his Valyrian steel dagger in one hairy fist. His breaths were thick and heavy, almost snorts, and he made a sound like a knife scraping on stone that Geoff realized was laughter.

The beast that used to be Kerry swiped down almost lazily with the dagger and caught Geoff on the upper arm. It was a glancing blow, but the steel cut deep anyway, and he had to grab his arm to try to staunch the blood as he ran off. He hated to run from a fight, but this was… He’d never even heard about anything like this. Michael had been right, gods, he’d been right all those days ago; Ryan wasn’t mad, he was just an absolute abomination. He hadn’t even realized he had made a noise until he ran into Jack, who asked him if he was alright because he’d heard his scream. That was okay until the beast got Jack too, a slice to the mid-back and then it was gone. Ryan had said that this thing would try to kill them, so why wasn’t it? Assuming Michael and Gavin were still alive, it was just playing with them like a cat with a mouse. Their wounds, by Geoff’s shaky reckoning, weren’t even deep enough to have them bleed out, they’d just stain their clothing and be in pain.

Ryan’s booming laughter echoed in the stone room and Geoff jumped; where was he? “Did you think it would be easy to kill the beast?” he purred, and Geoff wanted so much to give up and weep, because he couldn’t imagine it wouldn’t get worse from here.

Gavin had survived the attack by Ryan’s beast, and was wandering around trying to see if Michael had survived too. He jumped when he felt a touch on his ankle, but it was just a little white chicken clucking softly and pecking at his boot. He smiled in spite of himself at the bird and picked up to tuck it under his arm. It didn’t protest much and it comforted him to be near something warm and soft… At least, until the beast came back for him. It looked at him with mismatched eyes and he looked back, and then, on a whim, gently placed the chicken on the ground in front of the thing. It looked at the bird and then him, and then turned away to let Gavin run. Later he thought he might laugh at that but for now he was just grateful.

Ray was the last to see the beast. He heard everyone’s cries of pain and wondered if he’d won by virtue of being the only one left. They’d all sat down a day or so ago (the days all ran together) and made their plan: they would, as Michael had before, back Ray, because he was both best-loved by the people of Westeros and the best fighter. He was, as Geoff said in a rare complimentary moment, fair, compassionate, and friendly, and he knew how to treat his friends and his enemies. He wasn’t sure he even wanted the kingdoms for himself, but who else of the five? Jack didn’t even want to do this in the first place, Michael and Geoff wanted to go home, and Gavin was… unpredictable. Intractable. So that left Ray. He didn’t even see the beast coming, lost in those thoughts.

Gavin was doing fine, winding through the maze, until this… shadow came upon him. He couldn’t think of another way to put it. It was tall and slim, with long legs and glowing purple eyes. It made a horrifying shrieking noise when it flew at him, and he cringed as it felt like the thing was punching him repeatedly. Just when he thought he might pass out, it flew away, and then he was alone again.

Geoff, meanwhile, made it to the back of the room (as it turned out there was an end) and entered the back part of the maze, which had narrower, winding hallways all in smooth light grey stone. Of course, hardly had he reached the entrance than the beast appeared.

Jack was faring better. Somehow an actual cow had gotten into the maze and was lowing softly at him, looking at him with soft-shadowed big eyes. He smiled a little. So not everything was horrible.

Ray met the beast again, and then it found Jack. Gavin found a chest that Ryan had left there, all filled with armor. He grabbed what he could put on easily, a helmet and greaves, and picked up the sword, but no sooner had he done that than the beast came for him, and in his haste to escape, he dropped the sword.

Geoff found another of the king’s chests, but this was full of vials and bottles, shimmering pale blue. The labels read “swiftness”, so he took a chance, and, thinking he had so little left to lose, tossed one back. He did feel better, felt more energetic and jittery, but no sooner did he swallow it all than the beast was back, opening yet more lashes on his extremities with that deadly-sharp blade.

Ray, out of fear, began attacking everything that came at him. First it was a bat, then a true cow, then, unfortunately, Michael, who came barreling around a corner with wide eyes running from the beast that used to be a man. Michael, disoriented from Ray’s punch to the gut, knocked Ray over, and the beast opened another wound on Ray, a red smile above his kneecap.

Gavin and Jack, again, were taken by surprise– the beast moved so quietly for a large thing– and Geoff found another chest, this one with armor and weapons. He had just opened it when a stinging poke to the back of the neck from the beast’s dagger sent him running again.

Though they were nowhere near another, Gavin and Ray found similar chests at nearly the same time. Ray threw on a gorget to protect his neck and took the sword, but none of the other armor. In his experience, plate gave protection but limited speed and agility, which were his two biggest strengths given his size. Gavin, who still had the greaves and helmet from before, did his best to put on the breastplate by himself, though it hung crooked and loose on his thin frame. 

He crept along a narrow hallway, following the sound of the beast; the armor made him feel invincible, powerful, and he was here to kill the thing after all. He heard shouting and the sound of crossed swords, so he ran, because that was Ray grunting with exertion and that was the beast snorting through its half-human nose, and he came out at the mouth of a larger corridor, behind the beast for once. Ray was sprawled on the ground with a shallow cut from neck to navel, pulsing blood. He looked weak but alive, and Gavin thought he might not have another chance, so he screamed some words he would forget later and threw himself at the beast, all his weight behind his sword. The beast turned to look at him, and that was its fatal mistake; the sword sunk into its thick, veiny neck, right up to the hilt, showering Gavin with a spray of hot blood.

The beast screamed when it died, the bull’s animal wail combined with Kerry’s human voice, and that one human eye was so big and blue, almost innocent… When the beast that used to be a man dropped to the floor, Gavin released the sword and the room echoed again with Ryan’s noise of shock. That was why he was doing this; Ryan’s fear was the sweetest thing he’d ever heard.

He made sure Ray wouldn’t die and then hacked the beast’s head off, carrying it by the horn through the stone halls to the entrance of the maze. The king stood at the base of the stairs, his hair a golden halo with the light from the afternoon sun behind him. For the first time his mouth was not curled into a smirk and his eyes were glassy and afraid.

Gavin sauntered up. He could taste everything he’d ever wanted, there, in the back of his throat along with blood and bile. He threw the beast’s head at Ryan’s feet and, in a moment of daring, wiped his bloody hands clean with the cloak that swung from the king’s shoulders. “So,” he said with his eyes like wildfire, his voice burning with desire, “I’ll have my reward now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, a shoutout to the anonymous poster who goes by Hanni, who has now left 2 very lovely comments on this. Thanks, bro.


	12. Epilogue: "You put me here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M FINALLY FREE! No, I'm kidding, I liked this story a hell of a lot, and I'm glad I got it out before King Gavin came out (I wanted to put out my own version of the beginning of Gavin's rule before he did). I'm even more glad that people actually read this damn thing. I'm impressed at whoever made it this far, really. I really can't thank you all enough for the support I got for this. Thanks so much. If you really liked it, please comment! If not, well, that's okay. Thanks anyway.

“Your clothes aren’t even in order,” Ray chided Michael, shaking his head disparagingly. “What have you been doing? You can’t go in front of the king looking like this.”

Michael grimaced as Ray brushed some dust from his doublet and straightened his cloak like a mother hen. “I’ve been with my wife,” he said, vaguely grumpy. “I got a son on her somehow, Ray, you may have guessed. Or do you still need to have that talk?”

“Fine, go in looking a mess, see if I care.” His hands fell away from Michael’s shoulders and he tried to look annoyed, but his face slipped into a grin despite himself. The smiles came easily, these days. “Surprised to see that you’re here so early, I thought Jack would be the first one.”

“I thought the hour was later than it was. If I’d known I’d have more time, I wouldn’t be here.” Michael’s answering smile was just a flash. “Have you heard about the uprisings in the Reach? The Rightful King Ray Rebellions, they’re calling them.”

“There are no uprisings. It’s a ridiculous rumor.” Ray’s stomach twisted up every time he heard the words _rightful King Ray_ , which had been coming more and more frequently recently.

“They’re saying that Gavin killed the monster, but you killed the _king_.”

“I’m no kingslayer. King Ryan fell on his sword, everyone knows that. I won his stupid challenges and lost the chance of greater glories to Gavin, and that’s all.” He struggled to push back the memories of those days; he’d gained back the weight he’d lost, he’d shoved away the nightmares and vivid flashbacks of five blood-soaked men practically signing their own death warrants. He hated being reminded of it all.

Michael looked unconvinced, and that scared Ray more than anything else. For all the talks of him being the rightful king, he knew that public opinion could turn on him in an instant, and there was no man on Earth so accursed as the kingslayer. He trusted that at least his companions knew the truth, believed him when he said he had no part in the king’s death. Of course, that wasn’t completely true; it was Ray who had knowingly let Ryan’s queen take the chance to kill her husband. He may not have been there but he had been her accomplice all the same. Still, he didn’t want suspicion falling on her, when she’d escaped with her children to somewhere safe. Of course, maybe Gavin had killed the king after all. He didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. “Alright,” he said finally. “I just thought you ought to know.”

“What, are we already planning to depose this king and put me on the throne instead?” He laughed; he’d thought Gavin so unsuited for rule before, but the realm was happy and healthy under him. “No, ser, I think not. Gavin the Good, they’re calling him.”

“Gavin the Git, more like.”

“Not before I even have a chance to marry. Hard enough with Jack shoving his marriage in my face–”

“Excuse me?” Jack’s voice boomed out, and Ray jumped. He came around a corner, his pretty new wife Caiti holding onto his arm and beaming at all of them. Ray didn’t think there was a more beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms than Jack’s wife, except his own betrothed, Jynessa. Her spear was sharp and her tongue sharper, but her laughter came easy and her kisses were warm.   
“Seems not that long ago we all lined up to be presented to a different king.”

“Different times,” Ray said quickly. “It wasn’t– oh, Michael, here’s your wife.” Michael’s head snapped up, and sure enough, there was Lindsay, content as ever in a dove grey gown, carrying her baby son. Michael embraced her, kissing her full on the mouth. They whispered their affectionate words under their breaths, and Ray turned away to Jack instead. “Where’s Geoff? Have you seen him?”

“He was right behind us,” Caiti said, and then Geoff was there, wife on one side and daughter on the other. Griffon, even now, had never fully forgiven Geoff for sending her away during Ryan’s challenges, but Millie had embraced her father’s return wholeheartedly, and was happy as could be.

“Ser Geoff,” Ray acknowledged, standing to attention with an overdramatic salute that made Geoff laugh.

“I hear it’s to be Ser Ray soon enough. Knighthoods for all, I’m told.”

“And I hear you’re going to be the Lord of Griffon’s Roost now, instead of the Knight.”

“It’s a good day. I was a lord in all but title already.”

“Well, I was a knight in all but title, too. Chin up. It’s an honor. I hear he’s considering naming Michael to his Kingsguard.”

“Well, I’m not taking it,” Michael said brusquely, getting into a neat line with the others so that they could be presented to the king. “I’m staying home with my wife and son.”

“It’s an honor–”

“The Others take the honor. I don’t want honor. I fought for glory and all it got me was a bloody broken hand and a dead king.”

“Michael,” Lindsay chastised softly, and Michael closed his mouth. It was safer to speak his mind now, but he never did learn when the best course of action was to shut up.

A steward threw the doors to the throne room open then. “Presenting,” he called in a reedy voice, “Ser Geoff of House Ramsey, Knight of Griffon’s Roost, Lady Griffon, and daughter Millicent. Jack of House Pattillo and wife Caiti. Ray of House Narvaez.” That had been the only honor Ray had cared for. He wasn’t a bastard anymore, he was a legitimate heir to his father’s house, and all he wanted was to keep his name and live at Uplands with his family and his lady. “And Michael of House Jones, Lord of Strongsong, and Lady Lindsay.” They strode into the throne room, families together, heads high and boots shining.

“Kneel before your king, Gavin the Good, first of his name, rightful king of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm.” They knelt.

“Oh, what in the Seven Hells did you tell them to do that for?” the familiar Braavos-tinted voice of the king said. “Friends, stand. You don’t have to kneel before me. You put me here, and I love you well.” So they stood again, and Ray looked at the king, lounging on the Iron Throne. He was smiling, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He wore supple leather gloves over his hands, but when he moved, fiddling with something, one could see bandages on his wrists below his sleeves. “I had you come so that I may praise and honor you, not have you kneel before me like beggars.”

Ray noticed that he was fiddling with a gold dragon and felt an uncomfortable feeling start to grow in the pit of his stomach. Gavin looked Ray dead in the eye, smiling a little wider… and flipped the coin into the air.


End file.
